mUjntngtxttt fBorning #iar ! North Carolina s Oldest Daily Nev.spapei Published Daily Except Sunday By The Wilmington Star-News K B Page. Publisbei ' Telephone Ail Departments 2-3311 "Entered as Second Class Mattel al Wilming ton, N. C.. Postoffice Unoer Ad ol Congress " ol March 1. 1879. 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That which teaches us to govern ourselves.—Goethe. Upward Price Trend No question is heard more fre quently or in more places than, “Why are prices so high ?” And no question has more diverse answers. Perhaps one answer, by the Long Island Builders Institute, will help ex plain the general upward trend. The Institute claims that bricklayers lay only one-half to two-thirds as many bricks per day as they did in prewar years. The Institute cites the case this way: A bricklayer working before the j war at an $8 a day wage put in place j from 800 to 1,000 bricks daily. Now' he receives $18.03 a day and lays 400 to 500 bricks per day. We are quoting an authoratative organization, and assume that its fig ures are accurately compiled. If they are, the difference between prewar pro duction and wages and wages and pro duction now, applied to other trades, would seem to account in some meas ure at least for higher prices. Britain’s Plight Winston Churchill, past master of the resounding phrase, once said that he had not become the King’s First Minister to preside at the dissolution of the British Empire. It is too early to say whether that unenviable task will fall to conscientious, uninspired Mr. Attlee — but it is clear that England is now in the midst of one of the bit terest crises of her long and turbulent history. The roots of this crisis go deep. Be fore the war, England was hard put to maintain her dominant position in the world. The war placed an almost unen durable strain upon her resources and energeis — and, of every great impor tance, practically exhausted her Amer ican financial credits. The people of the Dominions, as in India, have long been dissatisfied and restless. And in the more advanced Dominions, such as Canada and Australia, the influence of the United States has rivalled and in some ways exceeded that of the Crown. You can find a dozen opposed rea son for the victory of the Labor Party over Mr. Churchill’s Conservatives in the last British elections. The most reasonable is that a weary people wanted a change, and Labor promised that. It received heavy popular en dorsement of the most sweeping pro gram for socialization of industry ever seriously proposed in a democratic na tion. And, at the same time, the people approved an “austerity” program, de signed to regain and expand England’s foreign markets and to rebuild her world economic prestige. This program was also, urged in most of its essen tials by the Conservatives. First move of Mr. Attlee’s govern ment was nationalization of the coal mines — long one of the sorest trouble spots in the British domestic economy. During the war, coal production was kept up by what amounted to draft labor. Since nationalization, production has been inadequate, and the miners seem no happier than before. Labor spokesmen attribute the recent emer gency, in which coal shortages result ed in a temporary shutdown of almost all industry, to some of the worst weather in English history. However, even if this factor is given maximum value, it is evident that Labor has not found a solution to the coal problem. And many authorities think that sim ilar ill effects may result when Labor socializes the electric industry, which is scheduled for the near future. The American loan was, of counse, a life-saver to England. It gave her dollar credits she had to have. Our reasons for making the loan were man ifold — perhaps the most important : being the hard fact that England is one of the very few friends we have abroad in a world torn between con flicting ideologies. But English econ omists are greatly concerned because much of the loan is being spent for liv ing purposes which do nothing to solve the trade and export problem. This, too, has been the subject of much angry debate in Commons. Some observers have forecast the collapse of the Labor Government. The best authorities do not agree. It is significant that Mr. Churchill, despite his strong criticisms, has not introduc ed a measure of censure against the government. It is felt that Labor will continue in power at least for the time being — that the British people will give it every chance to solve the prob lems. The British lion, which once proudly dominated half the world, fights for survival. Car Inspection Many American cities, exclusive of Wilmington, maintain thorough sys tems of vehicle inspection. One city in particular deserves notice because of the exceptional record it has made. The city is Evanston, Illinois. Evans ton started its inspection program in 1933. During fourteen years Evans ton has won eleven safety awards in national competition, and in 1932, 1933 and 1935 took the grand prize among cities of all classifications for its safety record. The $26,000 the city has invest ed in plant and equipment obviously has been money well spent. It is not too much to think that many times this sum has been saved to motorists through avoidance of accidents by keeping their vehicles at par. How many lives may have been saved can only be guessed. At stated intervals motor car own ers are required to put their autos through a testing lane. The building is j a quonset hut unit some two hundred | feet long. As the motorist enters he is halted by an attendant who checks license plates, horn, mirror, windshield wipers and windshield, rear and side glass, turn signals, tail lights, stop lights, parking lights, at the next stop the driver has his headlights tested for candlepower, vertical aim, horizon tal aim and defects of the lens. Next is the wheel alignment check, where the car is driven over treadles which show either a “toe-in” or a “toe out” of front or rear wheels. Then the car is lifted on a hydraulic hoist for in spection of the steering mechanism. Finally the brakes must show their stuff. If the car gives a good account of itself in these twenty-five items, the driver is given a sticker, good until the next inspection time. If it fails to pass, the driver is given ten days in which to have the fault or faults cor rected, and is forbidden to drive the vehicle beyond home and thence to the shop for repairs. We could use a program like this to a good advantage. Presidential Amendment The Constitutional Amendment re stricting the election of a President to two elected terms, which has been adopted by the Congress, is now in the hands of governors of the forty-eight states, to be submitted by them to their respective legislatures. Thus the nation takes one more step in the highly desirable prevention of dynastic government, and the resump tion of a tradition which existed from the time it was created by Washing ton until the third administraton of President Franklin D._ Roosevelt. Naturally, its course will be slow. Legislatures ordinarily do not act quickly. They have seven years to act on this amendment. But long as this period of time may seem at first glance it is brief indeed in the life of the na tion. Thirty-six legislatures must ratify the amendment to make it effective. The single exception to the two-term presidency would be in the case of a vice president elevated to the top po sition and holding the office for not more than two years of his predeces sor’s unexpired term. In these cir cumstances, and if the voters so will ed, a President might remain in the White House for ten years, but no ilonger. Mass Movement Of G erm ans By JOSEPH E. EVANS In Wall Street Journal BERLIN — M. Bidault's proposal at Mos cow to end the transfer of Germans from Eastern Europe into Germany and to permit mass emigrations of Germans from Germany into other countries, including France, is wel come insofar as it suggests a somewhat more reasonable, not to say more Christian, ap proach to Germany than up to now has been apparent on the part of any of the four powers. It is true that the motivations of M. Bi dauit’s proposal are admittedly to be found not so much in reason or Christianity as in basic fear of resurgent German might; a Germany with too many people in it, that is, a potential threat to France. It is a pity that the {proposal had to be made in this way; that it could not have been made on the basis of human rights and dignity; that mass deportations of peoples could not have been denounce^ as strongly when undertaken by Allies as when undertaken by Nazis. For there is little moral justification to be found for the theory and operation of the ex pulsion of four and one-half million Germans from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, an expulsion agreed to by the Big Three at Potsdam with the proviso that “any transfers that, take place should be effected in an or derly and humane manner.” The words sound now, as they should have sounded to their framers then, like a mon strous joke. The very fact that four and one half million people have already been moved in a year and one-half is sufficient indication of how -it was done. You cannot uproot that many people in that length of time in an or derly and humane manner. For verification, one needs only to meet the box car trains at Anhalter Bahnof in Berlin bringing the refugees from Pomerania. Silesia and East Prussia, or to drive through the deserted vil lages of the Sudeten mountains in Czechoslo vakia. The utter fatuousness, the stupidity ap proaching madness, of this part of the Pots dam declaration is implied in M. Bidault’s proposal. Why were those people to be re moved in the first place? Because, in the case of Czechoslovakia, they represented a potentially dangerous minority which had in fact to a certain large degree — but by no means unanimously — demonstrated its dan ger by supporting Hitler: a minority which nonetheless had lived in the Sudetenland for long periods, generations in some cases, cen turies in others. In the northeast, it was a question of removing Germans from terri tories temporarily placed under Polish ad ministration pending final establishment of Germany’s eastern frontiers — and for this removal, because the boundaries were not fixed, there was not the slightest excuse. Aside from the moral stench of these mass deportations, anyune nugiu nave anuwu nuw fantastically uneconomic they were. What was to be expected from the dumping into a foreshortened, industrially and agricul turally woefully un-self - sufficient Germany with a tremendous housing shortage of these millions of homeless refugees? M. Bidault has provided the answer: other millions of Germans must be gotten out of Germany. It seems really not too much to expect that the Big Three at Potsdam might have had enough basic perception to foresee this obviously inevitable result. It puts them back just about where they were at Potsdam, ex cept that millions of people have suffered ter rible hardship and the rich agricultural lands of the East, 24 per cent of pre-war Ger many’s total land area and 28 per cent of its arable land, is and for years will be all but useless to a food-hungry world. M. Bidault's proposal shows the tragic short - sightedness of the governments of Czechoslovakia and Poland (the Hungarian German-minority question is by no means comparably great) and the vicious inability or refusal to understand of the governments of America, Russia and Britain in still anoth er way. The proposal means that Europeans and Germans are going to have to learn to get along, for only on that basis is it possible^ to actly with the calendar. A series, or cycle, of 19 years has therefore been taken and numbered from 1 to 19, the numbers being known as Golden Numbers. Then to each of these years has also been given a number which is the age, reck oned in days, of the moon at the beginning of the year. The num bers in this second series are known as Epacts, and from the Golden Number and Epact the full moon for deciding the date of Easter in any year may be work ed out. It is curious that in arranging the date of Easter according to rule, the spring equinox is a cal culated date and not the actual rpring equinox; the moon referred to is not the actual moon shining in the sky, but a mathematically calculated moon; and full moon does not mean a complete circular moon, but a suppos ed full moon according to cer tain averaging over a course of years. All this is due to the im perfections of the calendar, which never corresponds exactly with the real movements of the sun and moon. The earliest date oh which East er Sunday can fall is March 22, but that will not occur till the year 2285. and the latest possible oate is April 25, which last fell in 1943. The reason nineteen years are taken to form a cycle for reckon ing the Golden Numbers is that, on a given day of the month, the Literary Guidepost By W. G. ROGERS THE BIRD ESCAPED, by Jon Godden (Rinehart; S2.50). Three men and a photograph, and a secret, too, set off in the crew of a small steamer across the dangerous South Pacific in late 1941. They are Prince, the steward: Jacko, the fearful, ugly first cook, who keeps a falcon caged on the deck: Sebastian second cook: and a snapshot, at which Sebastian steals a risky glance, of Prince. Jacko and a beautiful girl. Without Sebastian there would be no secret, and for that mailer, without Prince and Jacko there would be none, either. But it is the persistent, probing Sebastian, newcomer to the high seas, rub bing elbows with Jacko in the tiny galley, who smells a rat. It’s nothing. Prince says, forget about it, don’t be sticking your nose in other people’s business. But curiosity keeps gnawing at Sebastian. He hears the captain talk about murder: he watches Jacko tantalize the imprisoned bird cruelly: he sees him make painstaking entries in his myoteri ov-, book; and he gets caught reading it and, as Jacko flies ax him w-ith a knife, barely escapes with his life. Their ship carries a little gun, but they miss their one chance to use it and we now catch up with the lone survivor where we me him on the first page, washed up or, a tropical shore along which ir.ore birds peck their way, leav ing diamond - shaped footprints in the sand. A man recovering con sciousness in this deserted, for saken spot couid, out of desper ation, escape his terrifying loneli ress by conjuring up a troubled past. If he calls the names of Prince and Jacko, he might hear them answer: if he needs them, he might make them out of the wisps of mist which sweep in from the ocean, or out of the birds themselves, cocking their heads as they stalk up and down. The an swer that might be expected only in Liverpool may be found here on the opposite side of the world in this clean white beacn one might dig up the story of an ap pallingly bestial and untamed na ture. The author handles her unusual material expertly; the very sub stance of her tale is imagined by cne of the characters she has imagined, and yet it stays eerily close to credibility. Thii i« tha kind of stuff Dali painta. moon is approximately in the same position in the sky as it was nineteen years before so that nineteen forms a complete series. * » * What Is The Nautical Almanac? The Nautical Almanac is a book prepared specially for navigators and astronomers, with tables showing the daily positions of all the bodies of the solar system, the places of the fixed stars, predic tions of astronomical events, and other similar information. Nauti • cal almanacs are issued bv the governments of Great Britain, the United States and other nations. * * * How Much Is A Billion? Tlie nations of the world differ as to how much a billion is. In the United States. Canada and France, a billion is one thousand millions—written 1.000.000.000. In France, this number is sometimes called a milliard, a term which is always applied to it in Germany. In England and Germany, a bil lion is one million millions— written 1,000,000.000.000. (Copyright. 1946. By The Grolier Society, Inc. based upon The Book Of Knowledge) (Distributtd by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.) TOMORROW: — Early Indians of the West. Religion Day By Day BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS “UP IN A MINUTE" After meeting a Winter (rain, which arrived at 5:30 a. m., we repaired to an all-night restaurant for breakfast. "What time does the sun rise nowadays down here in Florida?” I asked the attend ant. “A little before six,” he replied. At six o’clock we were leaving the restaurant in full darkness, and I remimnded the man that his appointed time had passed, with no sun in sight. "Oh, it’ll be up in a minute," he replied, confidently and care lessly. There are people like that, whose sunrises will appear "in a minute.” But the Lord of day is more leisurely in his motions. Sun rises are gradual. Daylight comes slowly. Changes in life and affairs—the sunrises of the human soul—like wise never come “in a minute." We would enter into the patience of God, and learn the gradualness of the growth of the Kingdom. Amen. The Doctor Says— HUMAN BODS HAS PROTEIN NEEDS By WILLIAM A. O BRIEN, M. I), The body does not suffer from temporary failure to obtain suffl cient protein food, but over longer periods of deprivation damage al ways occurs. Meat, eggs, cheese, milk, fish and certain vegetables are good sources of protein food. Vitamins are necessary to pro. tect the body against disease, but protein and mineral salts are equally important. Normal blood plasma contains a certain quantity of protein which will be reduced if there is insufficient supply 0r excessive destruction of protein in the body. When the diet lacks protein, anemia develops. In building ! blood, meat plays an important I part as it contains both iron and protein. Protein also mixes with gastric juice to form stimulating substance in bone marrow, which is lacking in pernicious anemia. Extra protein food must be eaten during pregnancy as it is an essential building material Early in pregnancy the mother starts to store protein in her tis sues in the form of nitrogen, and she continues to store it until there is an excess. After her own needs and those of her baby are met, a certain amount is saved for breast milk. In some forms of kidney trouble, protein passes through the blood into the urine. To correct the deficiency, these patients are given extra protein food and in jections of blood plasma. In liver disease, it has been cui tomary to feed the patients ex tra sugar, but now it is known that extra protein is equally im portant. When the liver can ob tain its quota od essential food materials, it is protected from damage by poisons which attack it. Protein also is of value in help ing peptic ulcers to heal. Patients with stomach and duodenal ulcers are urged to drink large quantities of milk and cream. Not only dot! this overcome the acidity of the gastric juice, but it also supplin building materials for healing th« ulcer. QUESTION: I have high blood pressure and I have been told that there is an operation for this con dition. Woull you advise m* to have it? ANSWER: Cutting the sym pathetic nerves to the blood ves sels may result in the reduction of high blood pressure. Careful se lection of patients for the opera tion is necessary, and you should consult your physician. Star Dust And of the Pocketbook! “Oh, Harry,” cried the little wom an, “I saw such an adorable hat in Stacey's window this morning. 1 simply fell in love with it!” "No, dear,” corrected Harry, “not love. Love is a matter of the heart—yours is strictly a matter of the head!” Who's Teaching Who? Beneath a bumbling, apparently aimless adolescent manner, young Henry Simpson hides a shrewd brain. How shrewd, even his own father is now only beginning tc surmise. The other day, Henry * father gave his offspring 50 tents, and by way of initiating him into the great world of finance, counsel ed: “Invest it carefully and wisely, son.” That evening rienry reported that he had invested the sum in a fiver in pigeon-raising in partnership with his friend, George. His father was disappointed and angry. “But, father,” protested the young financier, “George has guar anteed I'll double my investment in a few days.” “Fiddlesticks!” scoffed the elder Simpson. “The venture is absolute ly worthless — you’ve lost your money! ” Henry's face assumed an expres sion of utter dejection and futility. His father was deeply touched. “Here, Henry,” the elder Simp son exclaimed reassuringly, “here is a dolar. Take it and see what you can do with it.” "Gosh!” exulted Henry, suddenly happy again, “George was right after all. He said I’d double my investment in a few days, and hert I ve done it in only twelve hours. What do you think of that, father?” His father answered him not. WHY WE SAY *T STAN l COLLINS ft L l SLAWfON iTrr—r~ mm im n—m ORANGE BLOSSOMS , WEDDING \ HA Orange blossoms, today synonymous with wedding bells, are frequently used on wedding rings as a svmbol of fruit fulness as orange trees are one of the most prolific of all fruit bearing trees.