HARDWOOD RECORD 



33 



each of nhom necessarily gets a profit out of bis contribution to the 

 finished article, is shown to be, in the last analysis, the only econom- 

 ical method of production. 



The secret, of course, is in doing business with as small a capital 

 investment as possible; or, to turn the situation around, to get as 

 large a turnover as possible out of the capital available. If the 

 manufacturer has exhausted his selling field and has reached a point 

 where it is impossible to sell more goods, then, conceivably, it would 

 pay him to turn around and seek for methods of increasing his 

 profits by going into the manufacture of the goods which he himself 

 consumes. But a situation such as this is hardly likely to develop 

 in America for many years to come, for in every line the proclama- 

 tion is heard that the field is just being properly developed, and that 

 consumption is expanding in every direction. Hence the greatest 

 profits are still to be had by confining attention to insuring a big 

 production of the article which is being made, and earning the profits 

 from its sale rather than in the manufacture of the goods of which 

 it is made. 



There are of course other advantages in that better work can be 

 done by specialists. The glue-room problems which are simple to the 

 panel manufacturer, who handles them every day, are sometimes hard 

 puzzles in the consuming factory which lays its own veneers; and it 

 is hardly likely that if a furniture man decided to make his own 

 hardware and mirrors he could do the work as well or as cheaply as 

 those who have made a life job of finding out how to produce those 

 goods best and most economically. It is usually cheaper, more con- 



venient and better from the standpoint of results to let the other 

 man do it if possible, and to reduce overhead expense, capital invest- 

 ment and a lot of other important charges to the minimum iu the 

 factory. 



A striking evidence of the extent to which specialization is carried 

 is furnished in the textile trade, one of the oldest and best developed 

 of all. Take a cotton shirt, for example, and imagine the number of 

 hands through which it passed. First the cotton was grown ; then 

 the ginncr cleaned and baled it; then the spinner purchased the cot- 

 ton and sold the yarn to the weaver, who made up the fabric. Theu 

 the converter or dyer colored it, the sales agent passed it on to the 

 shirt manufacturer, who probably sold it to the retailer by way of 

 the jobber before it finally reached the hands of the ultimate con- 

 sumer. 



This seems like a roundabout way to produce a shirt; and yet it is 

 unquestionably the best that could be devised. When it is roniem- » 

 bered, too, that specialization is carried on to the extent that a spin- 

 ning mill produces but one kind and grade of yarns, as a rule, and 

 that the weavers content themselves with specializing in one class of 

 goods, beyond which they do not attempt to go, it will be realized 

 chat the business is made up of specialists and specialists only. 



Consumers of lumber as a rule are willing to buy lumber without 

 worrying too much about the profits made in its manufacture; and 

 now they are going a little further and expressing their willingness 

 to pay out more money for having the stock cut to the sizes required 

 by their individual businesses. G. D. C, Jr. 



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Traffic Matters Around Memphis 



The Lumbermen's Traffic Bureau of Memphis, acting for shippers 

 of hardwood lumber from this city and from points in the Memphis 

 territory liave filed a formal petition with the Interstate Commerce 

 Conmiission at Washington, not ohly protesting against the proposed 

 advances in almost every direction but also asking for reductions iu 

 existing rates. The petition was prepared through J. H. Townsenu 

 of the Lumbermen 's Traffic Bureau and presented to the commission 

 by John R. Walker, a prominent rate expert at Washington, and is 

 st^'led James E. Stark & Co. et al vs. the Illinois Central Railroad 

 Company et al. This is the first step in what promises to be one of 

 the most important contests on record involving rates on hardwood 

 lum'ber shipments from the southern territory, and the Memphis 

 lumbermen enter it with an unbroken record of victories in all 

 similar fights before the commission. 



In the claim set out by the lumbermen it is said that the agricul- 

 tural resources of parts of the country around Memphis are not being 

 developed because railroads have advanced freight rates on certain 

 lumber which is practically prohibiting the shipments of the com- 

 modity of lands virtually cleared for farm use. 



It is also claimed that railroads have made advaucemeuts in such 

 freight rates until hardships are worked on consumers, thereby pre- 

 venting building advancement as is always necessary in a country 

 filling up with homeseekers. 



So claim is made to seek reparation on shipments which have 

 been made in the past, but reasonable rates for the future are asked 

 that the increasing difficulties of their business may be successfully 

 coped with ; that the price of lumber to the consumer may not be in- 

 ordinately increased and that the development of the section in which 

 their operations are located may not be retarded. 



The petition asks the commission to prohibit any further increase 

 on hardwood lumber freight rates governing shipments of hardwood 

 lumber, but to reduce them two cents per hundred pounds less than 

 quoted in the new tariffs submitted to the commission by railroads. 



In the petition claim is made that the Illinois Central and Yazoo 

 & Mississippi Valley railroads are common carriers and that a 

 major portion of lumber shipments made from this section is de- 

 livered to the so-called Western Trunk Line territory and Illinois- 

 Wiscons'n territory and to the Buffalo and Pittsburgh zones. It is 



shown that the railroad's way of fixing through liunber rates from 

 Memphis is by adding the proportional rates beyond the Ohio and 

 Mississippi river crossings. 



It is shown that several railroads mentioned in the petition reach 

 the heart of the Imnber sections around Memphis and iu Memphis, 

 and that their own lines extend beyond prohibitive rate-fixing terri- 

 tories, some even reaching from Memphis into the territory described 

 in circulars issued by various freight associations and complied with 

 by defendants mentioned in the complaint. 



The lumbermen believe if these roads maintain their usual way 

 of basing through lates from Memphis, that there should be a lower 

 rale granted from this territory to points in which the through lines 

 reach and where no exchange of business is necessary. Claim is also 

 made that the present through rates are unjust and unreasonable and 

 in violation of the act to regulate commerce. 



The complainants deny any decrease in the movement of hardwood 

 lumber as stated by the defendants. It is shown that there is a big 

 inciease instead of a decrease and that the railroad's reports are not 

 correct because the growing scarcity of stumpage and its remoteness 

 from points of manufacturers, creates a hardship on mills to furuisU 

 same, and that this fact alone is worthy of consideration iu asking 

 for a reduction in such rates. 



Other rate matters occupy the attention of the manager and 

 members of the advisory board of the Lumbermen's Traffic Bureau 

 and will do so for an indefinite period. At a recent meeting of the 

 buieau three new members were added to the advisory board, as- 

 follows, bringing the entire number to thirteen: Frank Fee of the 

 Fec-Crayton Lumljer Company, John Dwyer of the Lamb-Fish 

 Lumber Company, and John W. ifcClure of the Bellgrade Lumber 

 Company. At this meeting the fight against the proposed advance 

 on hardwood lumber shipments from points in the southern territory 

 to Canadian destinations was discussed and it was decided that a 

 committee go from the Lumbermen's Traffic Bureau to St. liOuis 

 December 16, when the hearing of that case before the Interstate 

 Commerce Commission will come up. Efforts were made to secure 

 the meeting for Memphis, but these have failed. The bureau is still 

 working upon the proposition of securing the issuance of througl> 

 b!llj of lading on liardwood hinrber shipments over lines west of the 



