PRICES: Some Worrisome Increases

About the only good to come out'of the nation's most brutal postwar recession has been the decisive slowdown in inflation. The surge in living costs has slackened from a peak annual rate of 13.6% in the three months ended last October to 5% in the three months ended in May. During the past two weeks, though, a freshet of price increases, actual or contemplated, on aluminum, autos, gasoline and sugar, has aroused some worry about whether the progress can be sustained. Then, rumors of a new Soviet purchase of U.S. grain revived memories of the massive—and inflationary—1972 Russian...