November 10, 1916 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



17 



has been spent for new freight cars. It therefore behooves lumber 

 shippers to take concerted action to secure a just apportionment of 

 cars for their industry. 



Two Ways of Preparing 



EVERYBODY EXPECTS TO DO SOMETHING AFTER THE 

 WAR. There are two ways by which people seem to be get- 

 ting ready for that time. One way is to declare that something 

 must be done, but just what or just how is not specifically pointed 

 out. That is our favorite way of doing it in America. It does not 

 cost much to talk, and it seems to keep the mind from dwelling 

 on serious things. 



In England they are getting ready for the end of the war; but 

 they are a little more certain and a little more explicit in their 

 plans of doing things. They are after trade, and a writer in the 

 Daily Telegraph recently offered this advice as to ways of getting 

 the business when the war is over: 



The British manufacturer ought, in the national interest, as well as 

 in his own, announce his name and his wares in the best of British 

 trade papers, and those journals ought to be spread about the world 

 so that the world may know what we are ready to do for it when the 

 war is over; so that the nation may take advantage of the sympathy 

 of the world, which it undoubtedly possesses at the present moment. 

 Never miml whether the goods can be shipped ; never mind whether the 

 goods are available ; never mind whether it pays or whether it does not 

 pay at this moment. The life of the nation depends upon our making 

 such preparations as shall enable us to hold the world's trade later on, 

 and among the preparations which can be made here and now is a great 

 campaign of overseas advertising which shall lay the foundations of 

 future prosperity. 



The fight for business when peace comes is going to be as fierce 

 as the fight for trenches and bridge heads while the war continues. 

 The United States wants its share, but it will have to fight for 

 everything it gets, and it must win from competitors who know 

 every open and secret way to success. 



One phase of the fight must not be lost sight of; namely, that 

 others are as eager to sell to us as we are to sell to them. The 

 resulting trade must be largely an exchange of articles, a swap 

 on an enormous scale. Americans must see to it that they have 

 something to swap when the day arrives, for the competition is 

 going to be keen, and the best equipped tradesman will secure the 

 best bargains. That is the very thing for which our British com- 

 petitors aie preparing when they undertake to advertise to the 

 world what they will have to sell when the end of hostilities shall 

 give them the opportunity to go to the world's markets to sell 

 and buv-. 



Prices Up? — Yes — But How About Cost? 



^TEVEE IN THE HISTORY OF LUMBERING has there been 

 i a greater need for knowing definitely and at all times what 

 production is costing. Lumbermen have been allowing themselves 

 to become elated over gradually rising lumber prices, and in many 

 cases they have gone ahead recklessly increasing their cuts, where 

 log supply made it possible, believing that each additional thousand 

 they were manufacturing and selling at the new prices gave them 

 that much more money. Possibly it has in some instances, but no 

 man knows whether conditions today are more favorable to him 

 than conditions a year ago, unless he knows to a certainty what 

 he is paying for every item of manufacture. 



Various important gatherings of lumbermen in the past few 

 weeks have revealed that there is an uncertainty even as to the 

 actual charges for standard commodities, and estimates at some 

 meetings have varied from a dollar to two dollars on the question 

 of cost of production. But certain it is that with the living cost 

 for the average individual practically fifty per cent over what it 

 was a year ago, with labor up way beyond what it was at that time, 

 the increase in production cost can not be much less than twenty 

 per cent at the most conservative figure over what it was then. 

 This has to do, of course, with the items of direct charge. On 

 this basis what has actually been accomplished as far as added 

 profits are concerned'? 



KNOW ¥OUE COSTS — then if you produce increasing cuts 

 (until it is certain that increased prices will excecil increased costs) 

 it is up to you. 



Lumber Constitutes an Exception 



HIGH PRICES HAVE HIT NEARLY EVERYWHERE except in 

 the lumber yard. Values have advanced with pretty much 

 every commodity that enters into the daily life of the people, 

 with the notable exception of lumber. Bread, meat, groceries, shoes, 

 clothing, fruit, coal, metals, drugs, chemicals, and a list without 

 end of other articles have advanced in prices during the past two 

 years, until some of them are almost out of reach; but lumber re- 

 mains at the old price. The man who makes the lumber pays in- 

 creased prices for everything he buys, groceries, mECchines, wages, 

 horses, cattle, tools. But he absorbs the increased cost and sells 

 his product at prices which prevailed long ago. This exception to 

 the general advance in prices is remarkable. 



Increased cost is usually laid to the war. In many instances 

 war is undoubtedly responsible; but there are probably many in- 

 stances where prices have gone up without any cause in the war. 

 Nearly everybody with something to sell seems to think that be- 

 cause there is war he can get a better price. But lumber is the 

 lone exception. 



Because this is the case, it is an opportune time for buying lum- 

 ber. Those who expect to build or to use lumber otherwise arif 

 missing a rare opportunity when they do not purchase now. Build- 

 ers have been hanging back for some time in spite of the exception- 

 ally favorable prices at which lumber may be bought. There is no 

 sure way to teU how much longer this state of things will continue; 

 but it may be accepted as a fact that the inequality between the 

 prices of lumber and of other articles in common use will not con- 

 tinue indefinitely. There will be a leveling up in values and prices 

 before long, and lumber will not be the commodity that will fall 

 in price. It is as low now as it will ever be, and when it begins 

 to change it will tend upward. 



Uniform Cost Work as an Association Function 



IT IS APPARENT TO ANYONE that all efforts to establish uni- 

 form cost accounting methods in the hardwood business with 

 the resultant benefit to everybody, must merely work around in cir- 

 cles unless those efforts are regulated in some way by some central 

 agency. The logical way of proceeding on a work of this kind is 

 to establish methods which will fit each group of manufacturers. 

 For instance, the problems faced by the manufacturer of northern 

 birch would be different from those which the manufacturer of 

 southern oak must contend with. The producer of mountain oak 

 faces conditions entirely different from those met by the producer 

 of gum. So any efforts that are intended to really get anywhere 

 must be grouped around some central point of interest, as there ari- 

 certain features of accounting which would be applicable in any 

 direction. 



What then could be a better method of procedure than for the 

 associations in the different groups to carry on consistent work 

 along individual lines and cooperate toward a common end? It is 

 true that cost accounting has held a prominent place in association 

 discussions for a number of years, but has this question ever been 

 tackled in a really serious manner which would insure persistent 

 efforts upon which the hope of constructive results can be placed? 

 The answer is decidedly "NO." 



The question is coming to the foreground again in the near future 

 when a prominent and exceedingly progressive southern association 

 of manufacturers at its annual meeting will embrace the question in 

 all of its phases, but in a different manner. The work isn't put 

 upon the shoulders of one man who airs his views, is given a polite 

 audience and then subsides. A special committee has been ap- 

 pointed to go into the matter with the specific idea of accomplish- 

 ing a definite result. This particular organization has a reputa- 

 tion for finishing what it starts, and if the promise of results is 

 realized this association will have definitely established that it is 

 possible for such a body to reglly get somewhere. 



The rewlutionary business man, like the revolutionary politician, 

 general^ has some unbalanced parts in his mechanisms that give 

 Trouble and interfere with the smooth running of his ideas. 



