16 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



March 25, 1921 



tion. The conference with the carriers has been held and no relief 

 has come of it. Therefore, the manufacturers of southern hard- 

 woods will be forced to appeal to the Interstate Commerce Commis- 

 sion. In the closing statement of its order Ex Parte No. 74 the 

 commission assumed that this order, issued in haste to meet an 

 emergency, might have imposed impracticable and unjust burdens 

 on certain commodities and that such impositions would have to be 

 removed. It was suggested that the need for such adjustments be 

 first taken up with the carriers in order to expedite correction. But 

 now that this course has failed to bring relief to the hardwood 

 shippers, they can only present their case to the commission. 



In the meantime nearly sixty percent of the production of southern 

 hardwood mills is locked out of the market. Producers are being 

 forced to leave millions of feet of logs in the woods to rot, and 

 millions of feet of No. 3 grade southern hardwoods are being used 

 for fuel. All this in the face of the crying need for the conservation 

 of the country's rapidly dwindling hardwood resources; in the face 

 of nation-wide efforts to enact measures that will arrest the devasta- 

 tion of woods and preserve the proper volume of this commodity for 

 future generations. 



Hardwood Eecord is hopeful that the Interstate Commerce Com. 

 mission will be broad-minded where the carriers have been short- 

 sighted and that this unjust and wasteful situation may be corrected 

 in the early future. 



War Industries Board Recommends Restricted 

 Trade Associations 



A REVIEW OF "AMERICAN INDUSTRY IN THE WAR," 

 which is the final and full report of the War Industries Board, 

 was made public on March 20 by the Council of National Defense, 

 and will be of direct interest to the lumber industry in that it 

 describes a recommendation for the combination or association of 

 industry, under certain defined restrictions. The review says of 

 this recommendation, which appears to be one of the most impor- 

 tant conclusions the War Industries Board has drawn from its 

 experience: 



Encouragement of permanent intimate combinations or associations 

 of industry under government supervision, involving a radical change iu 

 the present attitude of the government toward such groupings, is recom- 

 mended in the final report of the United States War Industries Board 

 Just completed by Bernard M. Baruch, who was the board's chairman. 

 This is one of the conclusions the board came to as the result of its suc- 

 cessful direction of industry during the war in conjunction with the 

 temporary associations of the various Industries evoked by the war neces- 

 sity. It is held that great public benefits in the way of prices and abun- 

 dance of goods, resulting from economies In production and distribution, 

 are capable of being effected through mutual co-operation of members of 

 industrial groups, and that the present governmental policy of enforced 

 isolation and costly competition is not conducive to the general welfare. 



But as the same power born of association that make for potential 

 benefits may also make for potential injustices, it is recommended that 

 there be created some sort of government agency which shall supervise 

 such associations, both for the purpose of promoting their beneficent 

 possibilities and checking their opposite potentialities. 



A concise recommendation is also made for the maintenance of a 

 skeleton organization along the lines of the War Industries Board which 

 by reason of its form and peace-time contact with industry would be 



capable of immediate expansion and action iu the emergency of another 

 war. 



Further delineation of the Board's ideas of the permission and 

 regulation of trade association is contained in the concluding 

 paragraph of this review. The review says: 



There should be established some sort of government tribunal As 



a purely civic measure legislation (should) be adopted that will permit 

 the continued functioning of the industrial groups represented by the 

 war service committees and the related associations of manufacturers, 

 whose establishment was forced by the war exigency. 'These associations, 

 iis they stand, are capable of carrying out purposes of the greatest public 

 benefit. They can increase the amount of wealth available for the com- 

 fort of the people by inaugurating rules designed to eliminate wasteful 

 practices attendant upon multiplicity of styles and types of articles in the 

 various trades ; they can assist in cultivating the public taste for rational 

 types of commodities ; by exchanges of trade information, extravagant 

 methods of production and distribution can be avoided through them, and 

 production will tend to be localized in places best suited economically 

 (or it.' While the continuance of these associations in peace is recom- 

 mended as an economic reform pure and simple, it is pointed out that 

 their existence, would be of incalculable aid to the supply organizations 

 in time of war. As the associations have power for evil as well as good — 

 such for example as unduly restricting production and lifting prices — 

 they must be under strict governmental control. The agency of such 

 control should act both positively and negatively to the end that the good 

 of association might be encouraged and the evils prevented — that the 

 economics of co-operation might be reflected in reduced costs to the con- 

 sumers rather than in excessively enhanced profits. 



In sum, the need of trade associations is recognized, but the 

 principle is laid down that their functions must be primarily 

 directed toward the public welfare and secondarily toward the 

 welfare of the industries associating. In order that the proper 

 direction of these functions may be obtained it is recommended 

 that a Federal commission be established for their regulation. 

 There is considerable room for doubt whether such a plan would 

 stand the best of practical operation. Certainly no group of com- 

 merce or industry would care to conduct an association for purely 

 altruistic reasons. 



No Reason for 1914 Prices 



THE PRESIDENT OF THE LUMBERMEN'S ASSOCIATION 

 of Chicago is involved in a controversy with a Chicago archi- 

 tect, who published in a Chicago newspaper a statement in which 

 he purported to show that prices of construction lumber are approxi- 

 mately 150 per cent higher than in 1914. This architect accused 

 the lumbermen of insincerity in advertising that lumber prices are 

 50 per cent, as he said, below the peak prices of 1920, while making 

 no comparison of the present reductions with 1914 prices. In his 

 reply to this indictment the president of the Lumbermen's Asso- 

 ciation of Chicago accused the architect of misstating facts, and 

 presented his own comparison of present with 1914 prices, showing 

 that the advance has been only some 60 per cent, 20 per cent of 

 which is chargeable to increased freight rates. There is every 

 reason why they should be considerably higher, as new and higher 

 commodity levels have been definitely established by the events 

 of the last six years. 



Table of 



REVIEW AND OUTLOOK: 



General Market Conditions ii If 



A Broad-minded View Is Demanded 15-16 



War Industries Board Recommends Restricted Trade Associations IS 



No Reason for 1914 Prices 16 



SPECIAL ARTICLES: 



Motion Study as a Basis of Correct Cost n-19 S 26 



Electrically Driven Saw MUls Vo,! 



No Relief From High Rates Promised 22 * ZJ 



Saw Fitting in Wood-working Plants « 



Conditions in Grand Rapids 32 



POWER LOGGING AND LUMBER HANDLING: 



Modem Logging Methods 28-29 



NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL CAPITAL: 



Miscellaneous 24 



Hardwood Case Is Most Important Before Supreme Court 24 



CLUBS AND ASSOCIATIONS: 



Rfisc-illaneous M & 51-52 



Contents 



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