TIME CLOCK

FOLLANSBEE STEEL mill will finally be moved to Gadsden, Ala., after a battle with the townspeople of Follansbee, W. Va. and a last-minute bid by Cleveland Financier Cyrus Eaton (TIME, Sept. 27 et seq.). By a vote of 360,442 to 25,212, Follansbee stockholders have agreed to sell their money-losing company with its $5,000,000 in liabilities for $9.3 million to Manhattan's Frederick Richmond. He, in turn, will sell the mill and inventories to Republic Steel Corp. for the move south, expects to make a fine profit.

PIGGYBACK TRANSPORT of truck trailers on railroad flatcars is working so well that Santa Fe and Chicago & North Western, which previously offered only limited service, will expand it greatly. Santa Fe is adding a Chicago-Kansas City run and a Los Angeles-San Diego service; Chicago & North Western will extend its Chicago-Milwaukee run to Minneapolis.

ANGLO-IRANIAN OIL Co., Ltd., which lost most of its production capacity in Iran, will celebrate its comeback by a 400% stock dividend to shareholders. The company has made up most of its loss by expansion around the world (TIME, March 9, 1953) ; under the new Iranian agreement, it will also get $70 million in compensation from Iran and another $600 million from the seven other oil companies that are helping to operate the Iranian oil industry.

WEST GERMAN STEEL will soon be up to its prewar peak. October production hit a record 1,780,000 tons, some 38,000 tons better than the best previous postwar mark. Estimated total 1954 production: 19 million tons, only 440,000 tons short of the alltime high set in 1938.

CHRISTMAS CLUB savings will beat all records this year. Starting this month, twelve million savers will get checks from 6,500 banks and clubs for a whopping $1.1 billion, an increase of $50 million over last year. Most thrifty states: New York, with $225 million; Pennsylvania, with $165 million; New Jersey, with $123 million.

MONTGOMERY WARD BATTLE between Chairman Sewell Avery and Stockholder Louis E. Wolfson (TIME. Sept. 6) is going to the courts. Wolfson, who claims to control 500,000 shares of stock (6.5 million outstanding), has filed suit in Chicago to upset the company's "stagger" system of electing directors, which puts only three of nine men up for re-election each year, thus making it hard for any outsider to win control. Wolfson wants all directors up for re-election at the annual meeting next April.

LABOR TROUBLE has been less this year than at any time since the war. In September, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only four strikes involved more than 10,000 men, and for the first nine months there were only 2,875 strikes of all kinds, v. 4,437 in 1953. In all, 5,000,000 less man days were lost than in the same period last year.

SINCLAIR OIL, which wants to increase its oil and gas reserves, is working on a multimillion-dollar deal to buy American Republics Corp. from Torkild ("Cap") Richer, who helped negotiate the Iranian oil settlement (TIME, Feb. 1). Dickering price for American, which has rich reserves in Southwestern and Gulf states: $72 a share (1,500,000 shares outstanding), $4 more than the current market price.

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