Canada's Henderson

Canada has had a price-control apparatus for two years, but only last month (TIME, Oct. 27) did it get power, and only last week did it get a Leon Henderson. To the chairmanship of the Wartime Prices & Trade Board went a dynamic, burly, black Celt, Donald Gordon, 40.

A shy, gangling boy when he arrived in Canada from his native Scotland in 1914, Donald Gordon was the Dominion's youngest (19) bank inspector six years later. In 1935 Graham Towers, Governor of the new Bank of Canada, picked him as its secretary; he became deputy governor at 37. Little known then outside banking circles, he set up the bank's smooth-working foreign-exchange control system, became a powerful figure in Canada's wartime economic councils.

The WPTB, having failed to keep down prices by Hendersonesque "jaw control," imposed an overall, Baruch-type ceiling on wages and prices. Based on maximums for the weeks Sept. 15-Oct. 11, it starts Dec. 1. Last week, on the eve of the new decree's effectiveness, Canada heard tough talk from Donald Gordon, no longer shy and gangling (he is 6 ft. 3 in., 233 lb.). Warned he: "Rather than allow retail prices to rise, the prices of wholesalers and manufacturers must be reduced. Price control is going to be made effective. . . . You cannot compromise with inflation."

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