INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY in the U.S. is being rapidly stepped up. In tne year ending with 1955's first quarter, says the Federal Reserve Board, productivity (i.e., output per man-hour) in the nation's factories rose about 6% v. an average 3% rise in the years just before World War II.

NEW ORDERS by manufacturers for machines and supplies are picking up so fast that the National Association of Purchasing Agents sees little chance of a second-half business letdown.

JOHN L. LEWIS' mineworkers will join the merged C.I.O. and A.F.L., predicts Jacob S. Potofsky, president of the C.I.O.'s Amalgamated Clothing Workers, who also says that the railroad brotherhoods will eventually join in the united labor movement. Together, the mineworkers and the railroad unions would add another 1,000,000 members to the 15 million already in the merged organizations.

BOXCAR SCARCITY is slowing rail shipments. With carloadings at 774,419 weekly (up 13.6% from the same week of 1954), the shortage is running at an average of 6.552 cars daily. To prevent it from becoming critical, the U.S. Commerce Department and Office of Defense Mobilization are considering loans and subsidies to spur construction of new boxcars.

BRAKES ON HOUSEBUILDING are being applied by the FHA. It has cut off loans for speculative housing (i.e., with no buyer signed up) in 26 areas where plenty of houses are available. Though the foreclosure rate on home mortgages is still low, the U.S. Savings and Loan League reported that it rose to .75% for 1954, the highest postwar point, but is expected to be lower in 1955.

SANTA FE RAILROAD, longest in the U.S. (TIME, May 23), will expand again. For $9,963,000 the Santa Fe bought 73,800 shares (82%) of the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad from the estate of George P. McNear Jr., whose death by a shotgun blast during a 1947 strike is still unsolved. With the 239-mile T.P. & W., which bridges central Illinois and ties in with the Santa Fe tracks at Lomax, Ill., the Santa Fe can bypass crowded Chicago switchyards with transcontinental freight, save up to eight hours on New York deliveries.

NLRB is due for a change at the top. Chairman Guy Farmer, a middle-of-the-roader in labor-management controversies, wants to return to his Washington law practice, has asked the White House not to reappoint him when his term expires Aug. 27.

RUBBER SHORTAGE will hit the U.S. by 1959, predicts the Commerce Department. Worldwide use of rubber is climbing 4% yearly, but natural rubber production is rising only 1%, and synthetic plants are not expanding fast enough to close the gap.

MAIL-ORDER HOUSES have cut prices an average 10% this summer. In their new catalogues, both Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward have chopped prices on some 9,000 items; readymade clothes are down as much as 15%, electric appliances by 30% to 50%, bath towels and pillows by 33% to 44%.

ALASKAN AIRLINE MERGER between Pacific Northern Airlines and Alaska Airlines will be pushed by CAB to reduce the need for subsidies.

PRIVATE INVESTORS will be part owners of TVA under a plan sent to Congress by President Eisenhower. Under the plan, approved by TVA Chairman Herbert Vogel but opposed by his two fellow commissioners, TVA will get no more federal appropriations, but operate much like any private utility; it will issue its own bonds (not secured by the U.S. Treasury) up to $750 million, set electric rates to pay interest and amortization to private investors. Any surplus income will be used to reduce the Treasury's $1 billion investment in TVA, pay interest on the balance.

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