The Pulse Runs Down

In the nine-week-old steel strike, the two opponents were close, yet not quite close enough. The Government offered 11 to 12 1/2-c-; the steel strikers wanted 12 1/2-c- flat. Prime Minister Mackenzie King remarked hopefully: "We'll see a way out of this before long; we are nearing the end." Union Leader Charles Millard said: "The strike can be settled, possibly this week."

But each side waited for the other to make the slight concession that would mean a settlement.

Meanwhile, Canada's pulse of production grew weaker. Many of the nation's nail factories and foundries had closed. Shipyards, locomotive works, railroad-car shops were digging deep into their inventories. The manufacture of pipes, sinks, wires, tubs, farm implements was being choked off. Plumbing and housing, both critical bottlenecks, were tighter than ever. Auto production dropped to 5,500 so far this month (v. 20,000 in May). Now Ford and General Motors production lines were crawling. (Chrysler's was shut down because of a strike.)

Other strikes had throttled other supply arteries. There was little salt, window glass, and no milk bottles. The output of soap, rayon, pulp and chemicals was down to a trickle. Without counting steel, the loss to production was staggering. In the first seven months of 1946, strikes cost Canada 2,544.581 man-days (v. 128,208 in the same period of 1945). And some 21,000 workers, in addition to the 11,000 in steel, had been on strike in rubber, mines and in the copper, brass and electrical industries for from ten to 17 weeks. All these major disputes were deadlocked. They waited for a magic wage formula, or a settlement in steel to unlock them.

The hard fact was that the Government had hot-potatoed the labor problem from one man to another, somehow hoping that tossing it about would cool it. But the potato was finally back in Mr. King's hand, and it was still sizzling.

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