TIME CLOCK

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING "will be tougher in 1958" due to "the leveling off of business," predicts Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell. He reasons that profits are being squeezed and management will put up a stiffer front against union demands.

U.S. BUDGET CUTTERS want to save "many millions" by making all Government bureaus and citizens pay the full cost of Government services that they now get free or at cut prices. Budget Bureau will push for boost in interest on U.S. loans, i.e., Rural Electrification Administration's 2%, wants to put a fee on everything from free Public Health Service tests of vaccines to free U.S. publications, maps, aerial photographs.

EASIER HOME FINANCING is goal of new mortgage plan of FHA. Under plan, FHA would insure the top 20% of conventional mortgages, with no limits on interest rate or price of home. In current tight home-building market, first mortgage is usually limited to 50% or 60% of home's value, and buyer has to take out costlier second mortgage to get part of remaining 40% to 50%. But 20% FHA guarantee would allow buyer to get a 70% to 80% mortgage right away, eliminate need for a second mortgage in most cases.

NUCLEAR MERCHANT SHIP, the world's first, will be built for U.S. by Louis Wolfson's New York Shipbuilding Corp. on a bid of $20,908,774. Keel for 587-ft. N.S. (for nuclear ship) Savannah will be laid next year, launching is set for 1959, and in 1960 the 20-knot, 10,190-d.w.t. vessel will start operating as "a floating laboratory to study nuclear power [in] commercial shipping."

INVESTMENT FUND for small business, with half the money supplied by U.S. Government and half by private investors, is urged by American Stock Exchange President Edward T. McCormick. His idea is for a $500 million investment trust to buy stock in small business; he figures that once fund gets rolling, private investors would probably want to buy up the Government's half interest.

TRANS CARIBBEAN AIRWAYS will become first nonscheduled passenger airline in 20 years to win scheduled status. Civil Aeronautics Board certified Trans Carib for five round trips daily on the lucrative New York-Puerto Rico run, which Trans Carib has been servicing until now as a supplemental carrier, i.e., only ten scheduled flights a month. Trans Carib plans charging $45 for one-way tourist fares v. $64 charged by competing Pan American and Eastern.

MILLIONAIRE BILL GRAHAM, the Kansas crusader for free enterprise around the world (TIME, Aug. 12), has recruited 15 U.S. shareholders --including the Rockefeller brothers' International Basic Economy Corp.--to buy into his Private Enterprises Inc., which will make investments in private enterprises in India. New company is capitalized at $1,500,000; Indian sources are expected to match the company's investments.

PENN-TEXAS CORP., owner of 478,250 shares or a 44% interest in heavy-equipment making Fairbanks, Morse, may be forced to sell "some 132,000" Morse shares bought since last May. Fairbanks, Morse has haled Penn-Texas into a Chicago court, charges that it is guilty of "flagrant" contempt of the Federal court order (in May) to stop trying to take over Morse within the next five years.

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