18 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



August 10, 191S 



tainty of early victory, this country will be on about the same basis, 

 as far as its relative percentage of non-essential production is cou- 

 cerned, as are the allied countries. 



The point of immediate concern is what all this is going to mean to 

 the hardwood trade. In the first place wood is so interwoven with war 

 production that there is hardly a line which does not demand its share 

 of lumber for development or manufacturing purposes. The expecta- 

 tion of short supplies that has frequently been referred to in this 

 column is not a myth but a reality. Were mill yards fully stocked up, 

 manufacturers might face the most serious labor shortage in history 

 with equaniminity. As it is they approach a period of greatly reduced 

 output with comparatively little lumber on hand unsold. The most 

 striking, concrete figures on this score are seen in the report of the 

 northern wholesale association's meeting elsewhere in this issue. Al- 

 ready reduced manufacturing capacity leads lumbermen to make spe- 

 cial provisions for handling government stocks and as this works out 

 as a more and more general policy, the proportion of non-war stock is 

 going to be less and less. 



It is a certainty that labor supply is going to hold down output and 

 with the rapid spreading out of the roots of lumber shipments to tap 

 the sources of war production, there is rapidly rounding out a chain of 

 circumstances that show convincing signs of the future. The future 

 problem will be one of taking care of production that must come 

 through, and not one of battling to keep up prices which are sup- 

 ported by such strong economic foundations that collapse during the 

 present era is an impossibility. 



In the meantime there is a lot of lumber on mill yards that is going 

 to be even better property in future months than it is today as it will 

 be reproduced with difiiculty. Letting this lumber go at less than a 

 fair market price is the height of folly. 



What the Associations Are Doing 



AT A EECENT MEETING of hardwood men there arose a little 

 criticism of the association offices which because of (jertain cir- 

 cumstances had not been able to get out reports of stocks quite so 

 promptly as was desired. One member cited the complaint of another 

 who was absent from a previous meeting. He said that had he re- 

 ceived the stock report for the previous month a few days earlier 

 he would have been able to get two dollars more per thousand for his 

 lumber. His sponsor was immediately reminded that had the absentee 

 attended the previous meeting he would have had the information first- 

 hand and so would have known in ample time what the true situation 

 was. This is just one direction in which associations are working for 

 the immediate and concrete benefit of members. 



At no time in the history of the lumber business has there been 

 more uncertainty as to markets than at present. Therefore, the work 

 of compiling reports of stocks on hand and getting market prices is 

 of quite exceptional importance, but so rapid are the changes in mar- 

 kets that the information is necessarily of most benefit while it is per- 

 fectly fresh. The moral is that an association member who does not 

 keep personally in touch, through every service offerea by his associa- 

 tion, with conditions in the markets for his woods is demonstrating 

 that he is marching a league or two behind the procession. 



The reminiscences of a prominent manufacturer who has developed 

 a huge business centered in Chicago, offer even more convincing proof 

 of what the association idea has done. This lumberman was compar- 

 ing former methods of merchandising lumber in Chicago with methods 

 now prevailing, citing cases of such items as thirty-foot Norway pine 

 jiiece stock which sold in cargo lots in Chicago at as low as six dol- 

 lars per thousand feet. These holdup prices were the direct result of 

 lack of organization of the shippers of the lumber. They were pitted 

 as individuals against keen-witted, organized buyers in the Chicago 

 market, who took every advantage of the shippers' helplessness. 



The evolution has come about not through changes in the individual 

 way of doing business, but through organization of the shippers who 

 acting as bodies have been able to distribute their product in a man- 

 ner that makes it impossible for buyers to prey upon them as in the 

 olden days. 



The modern association is not intended to exercise an autocratic 

 control of the market for its products, but rather to advance the manu- 



facturing and merchandising methods and the business practices of its 

 members. In so doing, the association acts beneficially to those who 

 buy the products as well as to those within its membership. In other 

 words, all industry is advanced by the establishment of an ever closer 

 touch between its component parts, a touch which brings forward the 

 best and eliminates the least desirable and the least progressive ideas. 

 Necessarily, everyone must benefit when the best methods prevail and 

 the obsolete methods are reduced to the minimum. The greatest good 

 can come though when the maximum percentage of eligible membership 

 is secured in each association which is working toward a definite goal. 

 The non-member today is showing himself unprogressive and out of 

 touch with the current idea, and is not only standing in his own light, 

 but constituting one more obstruction to the rapid advancement of 

 American industry. 



Association men should not spare any pressure that may tend to bring 

 a non-member into the fold of his proper association. 



The Yellow Deluge 



EARLY IN THE WAR the kaiser in conversation with his 

 American dentist expressed the fear that the United States 

 would gather in all the gold in the world. We shall never get it 

 all, but we are drawing in enormous quantities of the yellow metal. 

 It has become a veritable deluge. The vaults of the treasury con- 

 tain gold to the amount of $2,500,000,000. That is nearly half of 

 all the gold money in the world, and is approximately one billion 

 dollars more than any other nation ever had in its treasury at one 

 time. Just before the war, Germany was next to us in gold re- 

 sources, and it was some hundreds of millions below us at that 

 time. Now we have five times as muoh gold as Germany. That 

 country's precious metal supply has declined half a billion dollars, 

 ours has increased a whole billion. 



These figures include only what our government holds; not that 

 held by private individuals. But Germany's supply is all in the 

 hands of the government, even down to gold jewelry and trinkets. 

 The kaiser compelled his people to hand over all their gold. Our 

 government has never asked its people for any. The gold flowed 

 to the treasury in the ordinary course of business, and now we con- 

 trol the world's supply more nearly than any other nation ever 

 controlled it. 



What will be the result? We have drawn that money from every- 

 where in exchange for what we have sold. We have sold more 

 than we have bought and the balances have been paid to us in 

 gold, and in that way we have accumulated the supply. But things 

 cannot remain that way always. Foreign countries can get gold 

 from us only when they sell us more than we buy from them, and 

 we pay the balance in precious metal. Will that time come, and 

 when? What country will be in a position, for many years to 

 come, to sell us more than we sell it? 



As a cold, business proposition, the world's gold should circulate; 

 it ought to flow from country to country; it should not be lockcil 

 up in this country or in any other, any more than a bank 's cash 

 should remain in the vault. The problem is, how the golden flood 

 which the war turned toward us can be changed to flow back and 

 bring us things of value in exchange. When this war ends, inter- 

 national business will attain dimensions never before known, and 

 the United States ought to be leader, director, and greatest bene- 

 ficiary. Our store of gold should be put to work in our behalf and 

 buy advantages for us in the trade of the world. Many people 

 know what ought to be done, but those who understand just how 

 to do it best are relatively few; but let it be hoped that those who 

 undertake to put our gold surplus to work will be guided by wis- 

 dom, for they will be in need of guidance. 



When wood is thoroughly dry, the heat value of different species 

 is supposed to be in proportion to their weights. The heavier the 

 wood, the greater the quantity of heat it will furnish while burning. 



It was once thought that 15,000 feet of lumber was a handsome 

 carload; but now the load may go to three times that, and possibh 



