Facts, Figures

>Getting tougher on several fronts at once (see col. 2), WPB last week took direct control of suppliers' inventories in a broad list of 19 trades. Henceforth no wholesaler, distributor or retailer in these trades can carry more than two months' stock on hand (if he lives in the Mountain or Pacific States, three months'). The order covered suppliers to the automotive, building, dairy, electrical, farm, foundry, hardware, plumbing, railroad, restaurant, textile mill and practically every other trade that uses any metal at all.

>To enforce such orders, WPB's Compliance Section and Requisitioning Branch got tougher too. Compliance accused Hoover Co. (vacuum cleaners) of misusing some 350,000 lb. of secondary aluminum, forbade it to touch any aluminum for three months. Requisitioning seized 78,000 lb. of copper sheet from a bathroom-supply dealer named Katz, who had refused to sell it to Metals Reserve. Washington was getting too small for Requisitioning's expanding Ogpu; its boss, Ernie Tupper, went to Manhattan, looked at space in the Empire State Building.

>The U.S. spent $2,987,000,000 to wage war in March, 50% more than in December.

>The U.S.-Canadian border is dimming like a Cheshire cat. Last week the two countries lifted restrictions on the seasonal migration of farm labor and machinery.

>Under their 1942 U.S. import quotas, the Philippines at the end of March had yet to ship 418,000,000 lb. of coconut oil, 1,750,000,000 lb. of raw sugar, 5,676,000 lb. of cordage, 200,000,000 cigars.

>Department of Agriculture revealed that U.S. farmland values had increased by $2,360,000,000 during the last year. Sharpest rise in almost a decade, it still left total farmland values at $36,000,000,000 v. 1920's World War I-ballooned figure of almost $55,000,000,000, and represented a rise of only 7% v. over 40% for all farm prices. Most farmers still remember the licking in land that they took the last time.

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