18 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



July 2.J. 191!) 



Progressive Reciprocity 



THERE. NEVER WAS A TIME in the liistiiry of the funiiture 

 business when the retailer, wIkiIcsuIit aiul manufacturer of 

 furniture were so placed that the volume of business permitted 

 them to meet the new industrial conditions. Retailers everywhere 

 have sold more furniture in their particular towns than ever in 

 their history. Some retailers have said they have double their 

 business and cannot me?t the demand. The great furniture exposi- 

 tion at Grand Rapids, held always in the month of July, but start- 

 ing earlier this year than usual, had during the first three days, 

 half again as many visitors as ordinarily visited it in a month, and 

 the demand is so great to fill the retailers' needs that the plans 

 adopted by the manufacturers and wholesalers at this exposition 

 that practically the production of furniture of all kinds from the 

 highest priced to the cheapest furniture is practically sold for the 

 next six months. Manufacturers would not guarantee a price over 

 ninety days and would not sell for further future delivery, because 

 they did not know what the future would be. They realized there 

 is a runaway market in lumber; no manufacturer or ajiy instrument 

 in the trade is responsible for it, except it is the Maker of every- 

 thing good in this world for some reason of His own interfered with 

 logging conditions last winter and the result is there is less stock 

 on hand in the yards of the manufacturers now than at any like 

 period for many years. 



In many cases, owing to a miseoncejitidn of the future, furniture 

 manufacturers are not in the best of condition as far as stocks are 

 concerned. Some of them have provided for their supply of lumber 

 for ninety days, but few of them are assured of a lumber supply 

 for all the orders on hand; and from the way people have bought 

 furniture in the past six months it looks like no one can intelli- 

 gently make a price or estimate what amount of stock will be pro- 

 duced for the next six m^jiths. 



It is a well known fact in southland particularly that logging 

 conditions for this period are generally the best in the year, but 

 the government's tax law does not encourage any business man 

 to cut up raw material that he cannot replace at a similar value if 

 at all. Therefore, the peculiar conditions prevailing suggest this 

 thought: Most manufacturers of lumber prefer to continue to do 

 business with one line of customers. They are particularly anxious 

 to meet the needs of those customers, and that is true of the lumber 

 manufacturer today, because without his cooperation even the price 

 of lumber changes from day to day. If you sell quartered oak at 

 $150 at the mill today you will find something sells it for $-10 to 

 $15 more the next day. The fact is, quotations have been made as 

 high as $200. It is also true of gum and other woods utilized 

 largely in the manufacture ef furniture. 



We would suggest that the hardwood associations and the fur- 

 niture association get together and bring about a cooperation by 

 which the manufacturer of lumber can take orders at the going 

 price at time of delivery of stock -between now and January first. 

 If he knows what he must cut he is not going to run his sawmill on 

 two-inch stock when the trade demands one-inch stock. The manu- 

 facturer of furniture could well enter a contract pf this kind, 

 because he does not know from day to day what he must pay for 

 any kind of lumber to fit his nee<l. Many a manufacturer of fur- 

 niture is begging for mixed carloads to help work out his contracts, 

 when if the manufacturer had an open contract to deliver so much 

 quarter sawed gum or oak or Number 1 common stock within the 

 next ninety days, then the furniture manufacturer would have some 

 real assurance that he had the cooperation of the manufacturer of 

 lumber. _ If this cooperation is brought about, the furniture man 

 and manufacturer are doing the right thing, it will assist the fur- 

 niture man to increase the volume of his business at no risk to 

 himself and the manufacturer of lumber can best cut his logs to 

 meet present conditions as well as the charge to his timber account. 

 Both will be benefited and the lumber manufacturer will not have 

 a lot of unsalable stock on his yard after he has cut one million a 

 month for the next three months. 



In.usnuu-h as this lumber must be air dried, and kiln dried, 



because of the scarcity of stock and of the further fact that, in all 

 probability there will be the greatest car shortage in our history 

 this fall, both branches of the trade will benefit by this cooperative 

 contract. We would even suggest that these contracts be listed in 

 the office of the associations and that the manufacturers of fur- 

 niture could well acknowledge that this is a method for their par- 

 ticular benefit, so that after the manufacturer of lumber has tried 

 to meet these conditions so as to protect furniture men, that there 

 would be no opportunity for unfortunate disagreements, law suits, 

 or underhand business methods tried, either by the manufacturer 

 in careless production or fussing with the grad?, or manufacturer 

 of furniture trying to take advantage of the cheap method of buy- 

 ing that only finally ends up in a disagreement from the unbusi- 

 nesslike method of doing business. 



High Wages and Deficit Production 



PRODUCTION MAY BE STIMULATED by high prices, but such 

 is not always the case. At the present time the eoal iiidustry 

 in England is furnishing an example of how increase in prices may 

 not lead to increase in product. With coal at twelve dollars a ton, 

 which is above all former records, the amount produced has declined 

 until the situation is critical. Most of the increased price has gone 

 into increase in tlie miners' wages. The increased wago enables 

 the miner to live with fewer hours of work per day, and he is not 

 slow to take advantage of it, thereby decreasing the output of coal, 

 at the very time the price is advanced. 



The complaint of eoal operators in England is not that wages are 

 high, but that the miners have slackened their efforts and the public 

 is not getting enough coal. The result turns out to be different from 

 what theorists have long claimed, namely, that production rises 

 with rise in prices, provided that such rise in prices is not due to 

 failing supply. The coal in the ground in England is not failing. 

 Enough lies in the earth to furnish plenty, but the miners are slack 

 about bringing it to the surface, and the more money they earn, the 

 less work they want to do. 



The Bussian Bolsheviks would carry the same process a little 

 farther. Those of them who work at all, want to get a day 's wage 

 for a couple hours of work, ignoring the fact that so small an 

 amount of labor does not and cannot produce enough to meet the 

 needs of the public. 



High wages, made possible by high prices, imply an obligation on 

 the part of the laborer to supply the public needs, as well as an 

 obligation on the part of the public to pay prices that will insure 

 the laborer 's wages. The obligation cannot long be carried out by 

 one party if ignored by the other. • 



Three parties are concerned in a labor deal, the laborer, the 

 employer, and the public. The interests of the public are not taken 

 care of voluntarily by either the employer or employe; and in most 

 misunderstandings between workers and employers, the public gets 

 the worst of it, as in the under-production of coal in England, and 

 the under-production of a good many things in this country — one of 

 which may soon be lumber. 



No Tears Being Shed 



No TEARS HAVE BEEN SHED thus far over the announce- 

 ment that the daylight saving law has been repealed, and when 

 the clocks shall be turned back to correct time on the first of next 

 October they will go back to stay. The fiction of saving time, or 

 of saving anything else, by turning the clock forward, is about to 

 pass into history along with other fads and foolishness that have 

 come and gone. 



The degree of popularity enjoyed by the law may be judged by 

 the indifference of the public when the law's death is announced 

 three months in advance. No pleas for stay of execution need be 

 expected from clubs, corporations, or associations ;but October 1 

 will be awaited without a regret. It will be many a day before the 

 experiment is repeated in this country, unless war or some other 

 great excitement starts another wave of emotional hysteria across 

 the country. 



