Blacketeers

Their Cabinet nicely tidied up again (see p. 28), the British people turned from grousing about Winston Churchill to grousing about the black market, whose thousands of outlawed operators have made huge fortunes by trading scarce and rationed goods. Said the liberal London Star: "There has never been anything quite like it in this country--certainly not since the 18th-Century organization of thieves and highwaymen."

Crying for quick action, 82% of the people, according to the latest Gallup poll, favor outright imprisonment of guilty "blacketeers." But Britain's eminent Solicitor General Sir William Jowitt, who knows more than anyone about the extent and ramifications of the black market, favored a shorter shrift. In a speech at Ashton-under-Lyne, he declared: "We have played with this thing long enough. ... I, for my part, would like to see war courts set up and people found guilty of the crime ordered to face a firing squad."

Sir William's drastic demand came at the end of a week filled with reports of novel and outlandish abuses:

> Cosmetic dealers, bound by no food & drug act, were selling boot polish as mascara, commercial lacquer as nail varnish, powdered paint as rouge.

> Because the Government does not restrict the sale of "salad onions" (onions with leaves), dealers peddled enormous onions, festooned with leaves, at quadruple the ordinary price.

> Thefts of cloth (recently rationed) had jumped 200% since black-market agents wormed their way into department-store staffs.

> Clothing merchants were busily snipping off Government labels from "utility" suits, to sell them at prices exceeding the controlled price.

> Clothiers Abie Glazier and Mark Leigh were caught with 305,000 clothing coupons, which they were allegedly selling for $44 per thousand.

> When London dock authorities opened 50 cartons marked "razor blades" they found nothing but black soil. The blades had been dumped on the black market.

By week's end the Home Office, the Board of Trade, the Food Ministry and Treasury were sufficiently alarmed to order more policemen to trail the blacketeers, to impose heavier jail sentences and to circularize magistrates with examples of inadequate penalties. In the House of Commons, Home Secretary Herbert Morrison was asked whether the Cabinet would consider a bill authorizing the cat (flogging) for serious offenses. Replied Mr. Morrison: "We hope to find some more effective methods . . . than one which, experience has suggested, might be more effective at provoking controversy than deterring crimes."

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