CORPORATE MERGERS will find the going rougher. The Federal Trade Commission has slapped Foremost Dairies (39 dairy companies acquired since 1951) with a complaint charging "constant and systematic elimination of actual and potential competitors" with the result that Foremost boosted sales from $52 million in 1950 to $375 million in 1954. FTC Chairman John W. Gwynne has also asked Congress for new powers to require advance notice of all mergers in excess of $10 million, and stronger powers to dissolve mergers that have already taken place.

NEW ALUMINUM GIANT will be built by Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp. The company will spend $120 million for a fully integrated aluminum plant near Clarington, Ohio. Initial capacity of the plant: 60,000 tons of aluminum annually.

ADMINISTRATION ADVISERS who serve without compensation (WOCs) are being dropped from Government service rather than being required to disclose their private finances under the President's new rules. Office of Defense Mobilization has dropped 27 consultants, while the Commerce Department's Business & Defense Services Administration has dropped more than 100.

ECONOMY DRIVE to get the U.S. Government out of business will pick up steam this year. After stalling last year, the plan for the Pentagon to discontinue 52 business-type operations (including 19 office-equipment repair shops, nine auto-repair shops) is getting a green light from the House Appropriations Committee.

WESTINGHOUSE EARNINGS are taking a bad licking from the three-month-old strike. Westinghouse lost $1,037,000 in the fourth quarter, ended the year with earnings of $42.8 million or $2.46 a common share v. $79.9 million or $4.78 a share in 1954.

RENEGOTIATION SQUABBLE is brewing between Boeing Airplane Co. and the U.S. Government. The Government's Renegotiation Board has ruled that Boeing must give back excess profits of $9,822,340, less taxes already paid (on total renegotiable earnings of $54.5 million), for 1952. Boeing points out that its renegotiable profits were only 2.28% of sales and that the board "does not measure the reasonableness of the price of the articles furnished the Government."

TRUSTBUSTER Stanley Barnes wants to leave the Government for the security of a federal judgeship. A Los Angeles County judge before he went to Washington, Barnes would like to go back to California, assume the seat now vacant on the Ninth Circuit Court bench on the West Coast.

ARGENTINE CREDIT in the U.S. got a helping hand after six years of cash-in-advance dealings for businessmen under Dictator Peron. As a starter, New York's First National City Bank and Chase Manhattan Bank will set up a $30 million fund to cover payments for Argentinians for goods bought in the U.S. The move should help steady Argentina's peso, which last week hit an alltime low of 45.75 to the dollar before climbing to 40.

HOTEL HEADACHES in Las Vegas are getting more painful. With two hotels already closed (TIME, Jan. 16), the new, 200-room, $4,500,000 Dunes Hotel, which opened only last May, has closed its gambling casino and theater restaurants because of sky-high operating costs.

MILWAUKEE'S SCHLITZ is again the No. 1 U.S. beer, after having been nosed out by St. Louis' Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser) in 1953 and 1954. The 1955 sales totals: 5,780,000 bbls. for Schlitz, close to 100,000 bbl. more than Anheuser-Busch.

LABOR PEACE for the often-struck Northwest lumber industry seems assured until June 1957. Lumbermen announced an 18-month agreement with 80,000 of some 100,000 workers, including more than 30,000 members of the International Woodworkers of America. Industry pattern calls for an approximate 4 1/4% wage increase (about 9-c- per hour) that will add more than $20 million to the industry's annual costs.

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