THE RECENT announcement of an embargo on the export of scrap iron to Japan seems to have stirred up a lot of comment not at all favorable to our present national administration and its foreign policy. At long last the realization that scrap is “essential” war material seems to have become recognized in official circles.
Way back in April of 1937 in an editorial in Surplus Record we asked why no regulation on the export of scrap iron to foreign countries had been considered in conjunction with the munitions embargo then under discussion.
Today scrap iron is a diplomatic weapon.
Tomorrow it may be shrapnel.
The promiscuous exportation of production machinery, lately a growing concern of our legislators, has long been a matter of considerable concern to alert and far-visioned American business executives. The preservation of our leadership in matters of mechanical production depends, to a large degree, on our better production machines and methods. Providing foreign nations with good American machinery may seriously jeopardize, or even entirely destroy, our competitive position in the export market.
Unrelenting vigilance on the part of every American business man is needed to affect some degree of control over this condition.