RISE IN PRICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 9

RISE IN PRICES

STEEL IN U.S.A.

ATTACK ON SECRETARY FOR

LABOUR.

NEW YORK, March 5.

Mr. William Irvin, president of the United States Steel Corporation, has announced advances ranging from three to eight dollars a ton in, steel prices to meet increasing costs of production, including wage increases and the rising cost of supplies of raw materials. It is expected that the entire steel industry will make similar increases immediately. The new prices are slightly higher than those of 1926, which was the best normal year in steel history.

Meanwhile, at Washington, Mr. Carl Vinson, chairman of the House Nava] Affairs Committee, in the course of a debate on the 526,000,000-dollar Naval Supply Bill, alleged that Miss Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labour, was responsible for the navy's inability to obtain copper and steel. He said that Miss Perkins had refused a request by the Naval Secretary (Mr. C. A. Swanson) to grant an exemption which was discretionary' under the Walsh-Heaiey Act, and contended that she lacked the technical knowledge to enable her to decide navy questions. The total appropriation was 35,000,000 dollars less than the Budget estimates for construction, due to the navy's failure to maintain the construction programme.