GOVERNMENT: Permission or Else–

Very rarely in the annals of American business history has an employer been penalized for raising the pay of his workers.* Last week Dallas’ little Parkland Sportswear Co. was told by the regional War Labor Board that its entire payroll for Feb. 13 to April 24 ($4,532 for 47 employes) would be disallowed as an operating expense for tax purposes, because $600 of it represented raises put through without the routine, technical request for WLB’s blessing.

*First was in Massachusetts Bay Colony, where a few fines were assessed against employers who violated the Act of 1633. The Act set the pay of “master taylors” at 12d. (24.3¢) a day, “inferior taylors” at 8d. (16¢) “with dyett,” also provided that the rates’ for unskilled labor be fixed by the town constable and “two indifferent freemen.”