Business: TIME CLOCK: Mar. 17, 1961

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MINIMUM WAGE BILL to broaden coverage and raise the floor from $1 to $1.25 by 1964 got past first hurdle, the House labor committee. Bill would add 4,300,000 workers, including big chain stores, to the 21 million covered. Defeated: a clause to take in 500,000 hotel, motel and restaurant employees.

80-FOR-1 SPLIT was authorized for common stock of Christiana Securities Co., the holding company controlled by the Du Ponts. Present price: around $15,800. Number of shares authorized will go from 150,000 to 12 million. Christiana's principal holdings: 27% of Du Pont, which in turn owns 22% of General Motors.

PROXY FIGHT SHOWDOWN will come at the Alleghany Corp. annual meeting in May in the battle for the $5.5 billion holding company that controls the New York Central and Investors Diversified Services. Eleventh hour truce talks failed between Alleghany Chairman Allan P. Kirby (TIME, Dec. 12) and Brothers Clint W. Jr. and John Murchison. Both sides have already started soliciting proxies.

NEW HAVEN BANKRUPTCY was recommended for the deficit-ridden railroad by an ICC examiner and a committee of prominent New England businessmen. The examiner said the road's commuter lines should be run by state agencies, leaving it with only freight business and token passenger service.

POSTAL RATE HIKES to 5¢ on first-class, 8¢ on air mail, will be asked of Congress by the Kennedy Administration—a repeat of an Eisenhower effort to trim the Post Office deficit. Kennedy also is abandoning an unsuccessful $4.5 million experiment to transmit letters by facsimile.

EASTERN AIRLINES LOST money last year for the first time in its 26 years. Losses were $3.6 million v. $11.4 million profits in 1959. Reasons: Electra troubles, twelve-day pilots' strike, the recession.