Business: Inter-Reliance

¶At Salmon Falls, N. H., the Salmon Falls Manufacturing Co., maker of rubber tire fabrics and the town’s only industry, shut its factory the beginning of this year (TIME, Jan. 31). Work people moved away; storekeepers were obliged to cease business; the New England Public Service Co., which supplied all three groups—factory, employes and purveyors—with electricity, lost customers. The situation showed sharply how all factors in a community depend upon one another.

Last week the power company took the initiative towards stopping Salmon Falls’ economic decay. It is one of the companies that Samuel Insull of Chicago controls. Thus it easily found the $500,000 that it paid for the long idle factory of the Salmon Falls Manufacturing Co. Now it seeks a manufacturer to manage the plant.

¶ In Bath, Me., the Central Maine Power Co., another Insull company, learned that the Bath Iron Works intended to dissolve. To preserve its chain of customers it bought the iron works.

¶ At Holyoke, Mass., directors of the Lyman cotton works last week decided to cease business. The works have operated at Holyoke for 73 years and lately employed 1,050 persons, who will have difficulty in getting new work. News despatches reflected local consternation: “The news of the plan came as a blow to Holyoke.”