Down to Business

Jorge Alessandri, Chile's industrialist-President, is determined to run his country on the same hardheaded business principles that he formerly used to run its prosperous paper monopoly. Last week a broadside bill giving Alessandri absolute control of Chile's economy for one year sailed through the Senate and headed back to the Chamber of Deputies for approval of its Senate-added amendments.

The bill authorized Alessandri to grant a once-and-for-all nationwide wage adjustment, reorganize the tax system, fire civil servants, establish a new monetary system, modify the nation's banking. He will also be empowered to reorganize public utilities, consolidate government or semi-government agencies, control monopolies and practices that restrict free trade. The powers are drastic, but so is the squeeze on Chile's economy. The 1959 budget of $465,600,000 is unbalanced by $242,500,000; industrial output has sagged 10% in the past three years; food production falls far short of keeping up with the annual population increase of 2 1/2%; more than 150,000 workers are unemployed; and the cost of living, up 32 1/2% in 1958, jumped another 3.2% in January and rose 4.6% more last month.

Chile's main income source, copper, will greatly help Alessandri's program. Selling for 31 1/2 -c- per Ib. on the New York market last week, copper was a fat 6 1/2 -c- above last year's low--and each penny's increase in the copper price means an extra $10 million a year for Chile. Moreover, Alessandri, who was elected by a Conservative-Liberal coalition, has congressional support from the Radicals, most important of the oppositionists. Dancing with Princess Alexandra at a British embassy party, Bachelor Alessandri, 62, was a picture of relaxed confidence.

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