July 4, 1984

The major aqueduct serving Jersey City broke yesterday, cutting off water for several hours until after the flow was rerouted through a backup main. Four-fifths of Jersey City's residents were left with no water or mere trickles, as were residents of Hoboken, Caldwell and Lyndhurst supplied by the Jersey City system. The break occurred at 3 P.M. By 5:20 P.M., work crews had diverted the water, and pressure was beginning to build up. By evening, pressure was reported near normal.

Inmos International P.L.C., Britain's state- owned venture into manufacturing microchips, has proved a success - so much so that the Government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sees an opportunity to sell the company, while the opposition Labor Party argues that it proves the viability of state participation in business. ''To abandon public ownership now would be no more than ideological spite,'' said Peter Shore, the Labor Party's spokesman on industrial matters, during a recent debate on Inmos's future in the House of Commons. As Labor sees it, the Government, venturing where private industry feared to tread, made Britain the only European nation with an independent, domestically owned mass producer of microchips. Nevertheless, the question is not whether Inmos will be sold to private investors, but when and how. The Government sees selling its 75 percent stake in Inmos as the best way to recoup Britain's $88 million direct investment and $47 million in loan guarantees. A sale would also free Inmos to raise the money it needs for further expansion without placing new burdens on Britain's taxpayers.

Air Florida, once the prime success story of airline deregulation, filed a bankruptcy petition yesterday. The carrier's failure was a result of fare wars and new competition in its markets as other airlines also took advantage of the loosening of Government regulation. Minutes after the 11:45 A.M. filing, Air Florida ordered all its planes grounded, except for one returning to Miami from London. Passengers in Miami thronged the Air Florida ticket counters trying to figure out a way to get to their destinations.

''The street buyers of drugs, the street sellers of drugs, are robbers, are muggers, commit burglaries.

The Treasury Department has proposed a broad increase in the power of the Government to collect information about foreign financial transactions, down to such details as the charges made on individual credit cards in other countries. The Treasury contends that the proposal would help it combat drug smuggling. At the same time, more than a dozen of the nation's largest banks and banking concerns, including the Bank of America, the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American Bankers Association and the New York Clearing House, have criticized the plan. Many bankers say the Treasury proposal raises serious constitutional questions and violates the spirit of the Right to Financial Privacy Act. Almost all said it would be unusually costly and would not work. Several suggested it would also violate the privacy laws of several European nations and could raise serious trade problems.