September 10, 1915. 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



13 



it has proved successful there, they take for granted that it will be 

 successful here where conditions are wholly different. 



It should be borne in mind at all times that no business man will 

 work up forest waste, or any other material, unless there is some 

 profit in it. Only those who preach an unworkable theory advocate 

 anytliing else. If there is a great deal of material wasted in our 

 lumbering, milling, and factory operations, it is because there is no 

 pay in working it up. Wherever and whenever such material can be 

 turned into proiit, it will be done, and not till then will it be utilized. 



Revival of Shipbuilding 



NEW LIFE IS ENTERING the shipbuilding industry in the 

 United States. It is yet too early to venture a prediction 

 whether it will be permanent or only temporary; but for the time 

 it is an important feature of business. The growth is taking place 

 in spite of adverse legislation and in spite of neglect on the part of 

 law makers. No one can claim that any statutes recently placed on 

 the books offer encouragement to ship builders. 



The increased activity in the yards is due to the great advance 

 in freight rates on ocean-borne traffic, and the chief cause of the 

 freight advance is the war. The visible cause, therefore, of the 

 phenomenal increase in shipbuilding is the war. In some instances 

 sea rates have advanced more than two hundred per cent, and the 

 carrying trade is extremely profitable. The warring nations have 

 withdrawn many of their ships from commerce to employ them in 

 military transportation. Many ships have been sunk, many have been 

 captured, many are interned in neutral harbors where they will re- 

 main until the end of the war. There is more carrying to be done 

 than there are ships to do it, and the owners of vessels are growing 

 wealthy. Old ships are selling for more than the cost of new ones. 

 That is due to the desire of the purchasers to enter the carrying 

 trade at once and share in the large profits. 



There is difference of opinion as to the time of the end of the 

 war. When it comes to its end, a drop in freight rates on ocean 

 traffic will follow, but probably not suddenly. Some time must elapse 

 before old conditions can come back, and meantime the ships at sea 

 will earn large dividends for their owners. 



The lumber interests are sharing in the prosperity of the ship 

 yards. The opinion that iron has displaced much wood in ship build- 

 ing is erroneous. There are few statistics on which to base com- 

 parisons between the present and the past, concerning the amounts 

 of wood used in boat yards, but there is little doubt that more wood 

 is being used today in shipbuilding than was used before the in- 

 vention of the iron ship. The only thorough study by the govern- 

 ment of the use of wood in boat and shipbuilding in this country 

 was recently completed and it was found that the annual demand for 

 wood in boat yards is approximately two hundred million feet. 



These figuies were collected before the beginning of the present 

 war and consequently before the present increase in shipbuilding. 

 The demand for wood ia this industry may be expected to increase. 

 The demand is not for a few kinds only, but for practically all of 

 the commercial woods, with oak and yellow pine probably predominat- 

 ing. 



Between Two Fires 



WESTERN LUMBERMEN and certain congressional committees 

 are disposed to place the Forest Service in the uncomfortable 

 position proverbially expressed as ' ' between the devil and the deep 

 sea." This is speaking figuratively, of course. The western lum- 

 bermen have started a campaign for the purpose of putting a stop 

 to the government's practice of selling timber from the national for- 

 ests in competition with lumber cut from privately-owned land. The 

 first gun was fired in the open when some of the western timber 

 owners attending the conference in Chicago between the lumbermen 

 and the Federal Trade Commission, advocated the suspension of 

 sales from government land. It was declared unfair to the owners 

 of private timber tracts to permit the government, whose land cost 

 it nothing in purchase money, and is untaxed, to sell timber in com- 

 petition with private owners. An ofiicial of the Forest Service was 

 present at the meeting and spoke in favor of the government's policy 

 of selling timber, but prefaced his defense with the statement that 



the sales made by the government are so small that they have no ap- 

 preciable effect on lumber prices. The fight against the government's 

 policy of selling timber has not yet waxed hot, but straws tell which 

 way the winds are blowing in the West. 



It is well known that a formidable attack has been more than 

 once made on the Forest Service from an opposite quarter. It has 

 taken place in the halls of Congress, or rather in the committee rooms 

 where appropriations for the Forest Service are under discussion. 

 Some of the congressmen want to know why funds for running the 

 Forest Service are not provided by selling government timber ; thereby 

 making frequent and large appropriations by Congress unnecessary. 

 It is pointed out that the government owns something like seven 

 hundred billion feet of merchantable timber, much of which is over- 

 mature and is burning or rotting, and congressmen insist on asking 

 why more of it is not sold to meet the running expenses of the Forest 

 Service. 



A similar cry comes up from farther back, among that class of 

 citizens who have come to believe that lumber is too high and that 

 the way to cheapen it is to saw and sell large quantities of govern- 

 ment timber. 



The task of the Forest Service is not an easy one if it has to 

 satisfy all of these demands. It is caught in as perfect a dilemma 

 as was ever formulated by an Athenian logician. If government 

 timber is cut, the western lumbermen gird up their loins for a scrap, 

 and if no timber is cut, the congressmen who hold the key to the 

 treasury come out flat-footed and want to know the reason why. 



Strict neutrality is the easy dodge these days to keep out of 

 trouble ; but situations may come about where it requires a high- 

 grade diplomat to satisfy both sides if their demands are exactly 

 oppo,site. 



Some of the admitted facts in the situation are the following: 

 The . government owns a great deal of timber that is ready to cut, 

 but comparatively little of it is within reach of present markets. 

 It is in regions unaccessible until railroads have been built, con- 

 sequently, the timber is not now salable under the stipulation that 

 it must be cut in the near future. It might be sold to speculators 

 who would hold it for many years, but it is not now the govern- 

 ment's policy to do that. 



The sales of government timber are not large enough to have 

 much effect on prices. The values of such sales are said to total less 

 than $1,200,000 a year, while lumber cut from private lands has a 

 miUyard value of approximately $685,000,000, or more than five hun- 

 dred and fifty times as much. Besides, the government timber is 

 not thrown on the market at a low price, but is sold to the highest 

 bidder after being widely advertised. The charge does not appear 

 to have been substantiated that lumber cut from government land 

 has been sold at a lower price than that from private land, in the 

 same region and when grades are the same. 



The Reclassification Conference 



IT IS NOT STRETCHING the point one jot to say that the ques- 

 tion of the proposed reclassification of lumber and lumber products 

 wOl have a more far-reaching effect than anything else which the 

 lumber and allied industries have ever been called upon to help decide. 



The efforts of the shippers of lumber and lumber products to pre- 

 pare their case in such shape that it vyill influence the Interstate 

 Commerce Commission in its decision are rapidly being shaped into 

 definite form. Undoubtedly tangible arrangements of some char- 

 acter tending to best take care of the lumbermen's interests will be 

 formulated at the meeting to be held in Chicago on September 15. 



It wUI be a financial impossibility to fight a winning fight without 

 necessary funds. No lumberman has the right to feel that the money 

 that he subscribes or pays out on any basis for this purpose is money 

 wasted. The results wUl mean a great deal in actual dollars and 

 cents to practically every class of lumberman in the country. The 

 privates in the ranks must do their part through moral and financial 

 re-enforcement of those who have the work actively in hand. 



It is never good policy to follow closely the footsteps of a busi- 

 ness competitor. Keep posted, always, but do your own business in 

 your own way. 



