Too Tough?

The National Production Authority, which had imposed a sweeping Defense Order (DO) priority system only two weeks ago to make sure that there would be enough steel for arms orders, last week decided that it had acted too hastily. It relaxed the order. NPA feared that the hazy DO system would overload some companies with arms orders, thus delay deliveries, and bring spotty civilian shortages. To spread the load more evenly, NPA announced that no company need accept DO priorities in any one month for more than 15% of its carbon steel capacity, or 25% of its special alloy steel.

The change did little to ease the grey market. Fabricators got a wry laugh out of a picture showing their difficulties in getting legitimate steel (see cut), then went out and paid as much as $300 a ton over the list price in the grey market.

There were also new rumblings from Washington that steel companies are not expanding fast enough. Though Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer was satisfied, Assistant Secretary of the Interior C. (for Crow) Girard Davidson, one of the Administration's top planners on steel and electric power, last week said that he was not. Said Davidson: by 1953 the U.S. will need 125 million tons of steel, but its capacity will be only 100 million tons.

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