Washington, Feb, 12.
The construction of six new do-stroyers and three submarines, embracing halt of the United States Navy's current warship building programme, as revealed by official figures, is at a standstill owing to the critical shortage of steel, it was Jearn~ to-day.
The shortage is due to a dispute between the United States Govern+ ment and industrialists, Manu facturers of steel and copper, It alleged, are withholding necessary supplies from the Navy as a protest against the Walsh-Healey Law which lays down a forty-hour working week and certain other labour requirements for all firms tendering for Government requirements, With steel manufacture booming at a forty-eight-hour-week, working, corporations have declined to cut their hours to forty hours merely to All Government orders, which are relatively small compared with private orders The Navy, it is understood, needs Toast 28,000,000 1b. of steel, but hitherto there have been no signs that producers intend to sollelt for orders. A much greater supply of steel, it is revealed, will be needed it the Navy yard gets the contract for one of the iwo proposed mew 35,000 ton battleships—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.