250,000 MARCHERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18194, 15 September 1933, Page 7

250,000 MARCHERS

NEW YORK PARADE RECOVERY PLAN LAUDED MORE PROBLEMS ARISE (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) NEW YORK, Sept. It. The city observed an N.R.A. lioli day to-day, as over 1.000.000 spectators applauded 250,000 marchers who streamed up Fifth Avenue. The parade took over 10 hours, and it was late at night before the last marcher passed the reviewing stand. One thousand banners proclaimed the success here of Mr Franklin Roosevelt’s recovery programme. A few marchers attacked Mr Henry Ford and urged that no more of his automobiles should be purchased until he signed the code.

General Hugh Johnston indicated that he intended to allow the Ford situation to remain in status quo, and pointed out that Mr Ford had not yet actually violated the code. If he did, action would be considered. Meanwhile, in Washington, Mr Roosevelt’s attitude appeared- to be stiffening. He had made an important executive order clarifying the petroleum..code and again threatened ■punitive action against bankers and coal operators. The technical price fixing provisions of the petroleum code have boon abrogated and in their place Mr Roosevelt assumes power personally to- fix the minimum wholesale and retail prices of petroleum and its products. lie has ordered the incorporation of all retail dealers in petroleum and products under the original code. 30,000 MINERS IDLE As an indication that the bankers have not fulfilled his earlier pica, the President announced that the Government was considering making direct loans through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to N.R.A. industries to meet the increased pay rolls. However, he added that the Government was anxious to co-operate with the banks if they were willing to perform this service.

The deadlock in the coal code negotiations continues. It is estimated that at least 30,000 miners are out of employment in Pennsylvania. It is now revealed that an over-production crisis exists within the industry, and may nullify the N.R.A. even if tbe code is agreed upon. Railways, utility companies and other large consumers have been storing great quantities of coal in anticipation of higher prices, and it is feared that, increased unemployment in the fields is inevitable. The New York Times’ Washington correspondent says that the N.R.A. administration has drafted a master code for retail merchants, including pharmacies, which, it hopes, will be supplemented for the unsatisfactory one presented by dealers on August 28. It includes an effort to eliminate drastic price cutting. It is expect ed that the code will meet with much opposition from the large New York department stores, not only for its price control features, but for the elaborate provisions regulating advertising.

Observers with any background of thought and study, comments the Montreal Star, are simply stunned by the daring, the sweep, ‘ tho bewildering multiplicity, the detailed definiteness, the dictatorial ruthlessness of the Roosevelt plans. They come so near to Russian executive control as to send shivers down tho back of any old-fashioned laissez faire Briton who may still be extant. Imagine telling a merchant how many men ho must employ, what he must pay them, how many hours he may permit them to work; that, in fact, he must increase their pay while cutting down their—and iiis—output, that he may not advertise that he has better goods than anyone else, that—but for full particulars, see small bills. Imagine backing this with a threat that, if he either does not “voluntarily”—no levitv. please—submit his business to this intimate Government control or if he seeks to evade it, the Government will ruin him by canvassing the people from house to house to boycott him. If Washington hesitates to “recognise” Moscow after this, it will surely lie a caso of ono tnusfc teacher hating another. Still, it may work. If the American people submit—beg pardon, we menu “co-operate” —it can hardly fail to put more spending power into the hands of the masses, especially when the Government is pouring out hundreds of millions of new money. With a failing dollar producing a sham increase in the price of wheat and cotton and other primary products, with millions of men being put back to work, with other millions of pay envelopes being fattened, how can it fail to work —as long as the golden rain falls. Rut- who supplies the golden fain? The American taxpayer, now or later. He can afford it. American resources are practically unlimited.