Cheaper Steel

From the Interstate Commerce Commission last week came prime good news for West Coast industrialists. Beginning April i, a 31% reduction in freight rates will go into effect on steel shipped from U.S. Steel's Geneva (Utah) plant. This would reduce steel prices about $4.40 a ton for West Coast customers (TIME, March 10). Cried the jubilant Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce: "The decision . . . establishes the new Western steel price economy for which we have fought so long and hard."

The new economy might have come a month earlier except for the anguished cries of Henry J. Kaiser (TIME, March 10) for a freight cut for his Fontana steel plant. This had held up the Geneva reduction. As ICC said that it would continue to study Western freight rates, Westerners guessed that Henry Kaiser might soon get his reduction, too.

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