A REVISED N.R.A.

Evening Post, Issue 12, 14 July 1936, Page 17

A REVISED N.R.A.

IF EMPLOYMENT FALLS

INDUSTRIAL INTERVENTION

HELD IN RESERVE

Does the Roosevelt Administration adhere to the idea that some form of Federal regulation of industry will be necessary if the lengthening of hours and the downward trend of wages check the possibility of adding large groups to the ranks of the employed? wrote Louis Stark from Washington to the "New York Times" recently. Will this form of regulation mean a proposal for a new N.R.A., carefully designed to avoid undue delegation of power to private industry to fix prices and limited solely to fixing wage and hour standards?

Signs multiply that these questions are to be answered in the affirmative after next January, assuming that air. Koosevelt is re-elected and a large roster o£ unemployed continues to make unemployment a major problem. The signs 'which, are interpreted here to indicate that Mr. Roosevelt is intent on some form of regulation are found in-the President's utterances and those of his associates as well as of men who usually are accepted as spokesmen for the Administration in Congress. In his New York speech on April 26 the President,- speaking of the interdependence of farmers and industrial workers," said that his Administration "sought a national-solution for a national problem" by simultaneously attempting to "raise the farmer's cash income and to add to the working man's pay envelope" He said that the Government was working towards achieving "a greater purchasing power and a reasonably stable and constant price level.", THE COMMON THREADS. In his; Baltimore speech that pre^ ceded the New York address the President recalled the short-work day provided under the N.R.A. and cited a specific ■ case in which the lengthening of hours since the demise of the N.R.A. had kept employment from beins extended to more than 16,000 workers in an industry employing 166,500. Maintenance of- wage rates and standardisation of hours to some point approximating, that of the N.R.A. arrangement are the'common threads that are to be discerned in many of the utterances -of administrative chiefs from the President, on down. Among. Congressional spokesmen of the Administration, none exceeds in authority Senator Robert F. Wagner, long a close friend- with whom Mr. Roosevelt served in the New York State Legislature. Recently Senator. Wagner, without equivocation, defended the labour achievements of the N.R.A., emphasising that "it was not the Roosevelt Administration that took the N.R.A. away," and pointing out that longer hours arid shorter pay have followed the N.R.A.'s death. What is regarded as of most significance in the Senator's speech was his statement that,' in his opinion, "the Federal Government should reassert its responsibility to set the minimum standards of work" inasmuch as "permanent evasion of that duty is a clear abandonment of human rights/ Secretary- Perkins, in Chicago recently, hinted that a substitute for the N.R.A. might .be forthcoming after the first of the year "if by that time . . . the progress has not been what we had hoped." THE PROBLEM STATED. Secretary Roper, addressing the convention, of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, said that the problem today was how "further opportunities for gainful employment and lower cost to the consumer, without recourse to wage reductions or lengthened hours of employment," might be achieved. "■ Maintenance of wages and of the shorter work-day seems to be the common theme of the utterances, which, from time to time, have been reinforced by Secretary Ickes and Administrators Rexford. Guy Tugwell and Harry L. Hopkins. Although it took the N.R.A. almost a year after the Schechter decision to give up the ghost, it left four "offsprings" that may help to serve as the nucleus around which a substitute may someday be erected if the Government's lawyers. frame an Act to pass court scrutiny. The Council for'lndustrial Progress was formed early this year after a meeting .called by. Major George L. Berry, Co-ordinator for Industrial Cooperation.'With a staff of about twentyfive, Major Berry is trying to keep alive an organisation to further the idea of the co-operation of industry,labour, and the consumer. The council created a number of committees, one of which recommended that Congress be asked to enact legislation for a commission which would, after hearings, have authority to determine a minimum wage and maximum work hours for the several industries and to regulate wages of child workers^ . The nucleus of another piece of Federal regulatory machinery exists in the Committee on Industrial Analysis, headed by Secretary Roper, which is to complete the study of the effect of N.R.A. pri;-industry and labour. The Industrial Economics Division of the Department of Commerce, headed until recently -by Dr. L. C. Marshall, will'work with the Committee on Industrial Analysis to glean whatever lessons may be drawn from the experience of industry, labour, the Government, and consumer with the N.R.A. The'fourth inheritor of the duties of the late N.R.A. is the Consumers Division, transferred from the N.R.A. to the Labour Department. Consumer problems and proposals for consumer protection are being studied by this division, whose chief is Clarence Ayres. ANOTHER CHILD. The N.R.A. did not pass into history without leaving other offspring. There is the National Bituminous Coal Conservation Board, created by the Guffey Act to regulate the coal industry. Emboldened by the prospect opened by the Guffey Act, textile union leaders proposed an Act to regulate the textile industry and to standardise its minimum wages and maximum hours. Hearings on the Bill were completed and its proponents are pressing for a report to both Houses. Recently Representative Reuben Wood of Missouri dropped "into the hopper" a proposal for regulation of the steel industry so drastic and comprehensive that it has already created a furore in the steel trade. The Bill is sponsored by the Structural Iron Workers' Union. The outstanding example of an industry conserving gains towards stabilisation achieved under (he N.R.A. is Ihc cloak and suit industry, which set up the National Coal, and Suit Recovery Board five weeks after the Schechter decision. The structure was patterned after the N.R.A., with an executive '