SURPLUS PROPERTY: Wanted: a Policy

A realistic policy for the disposal of some $16 billion in Government-owned war plants was laid before Congress last week by Attorney General Francis Biddle.

Its gist: fix the selling price of the plants on the basis of their actual postwar "use" value, rather than on their sky-high original cost.

As a simple rule of thumb to find the use value, Mr. Biddle would lease plants to business for three to five years. After that, they would be sold — with the selling price based on the profits actually made by the plants in peacetime business. To make sure that the Government got its money's worth in jobs during the rental period, Biddle suggested (as Shipbuilder Henry J. Kaiser did six weeks ago — TIME, March 19) that the lessee guarantee to keep a minimum number of people employed, on penalty of letting the plant go back to the Government.

The provision that war plants should be leased at first, and not sold, was also made to enable small business with limited capital to compete with big business. Biddle made it clear that any disposal policy should favor small business. Example: a "number of small business interests bidding for a plant that could be broken up might well be favored over a single rival whose bid might even produce more cash." The yardstick in all cases, said he, should be the number of jobs—and competition —created, not the amount of cash paid to the Government.

As Biddle must approve sales of surplus property valued at more than $1,000,000, all this was encouraging to businessmen. But it was far from enough. The shocking fact was that at this late date in World War II, the Surplus Property Board itself still had no policy for selling surplus plants.