REVIEW OF LUMBER INDUSTRY AFFAIRS 



By p. S. Lovejoy, 

 Professor of Forestry, University of Michigan 



The following survey of discussions, appearing in the lumber trade 

 journals during the last half of 1918, is an attempt to sketch current 

 events and economic conditions which promise to be of some perma- 

 nent importance and with which it may be well for foresters to keep 

 in touch, so that they may maintain an intelligent understanding of the 

 point of view of lumbermen. 



GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF THE LUMBER INDUSTRY 



In common with other industries during the war, the producers of 

 forest products were subjected to more rigorous supervision and more 

 radical and particularized control than could well have been imagined. 



This control centered in the War Industries Board, and especially in 

 the Lumber Section. The personnel of the war organizations was 

 drafted, almost without exception, from the field of successful industry, 

 and professional politicians or representatives of the old line of Wash- 

 ington bureaus were notable in their absence. We had, in fact, a busi- 

 ness-man's administration, in which business men for the time ordered 

 the business of the nation. 



It is noteworthy that no large projects seem to have been inhibited 

 or seriously delayed by lack of essential forest products, and the lum- 

 bermen of the nation can well congratulate themselves on their accom- 

 plishment. 



To be sure, serious friction did develop at times, as in the case of the 

 vehicle makers and hardwood manufacturers, and again over price fixa- 

 tion in southern pine ; but these difficulties were of short duration. 



In spite of the success with which a series of very trying situations 

 was met by the industry, the lumber industry, in common with others, 

 did not reconcile itself to governmental regulation, even though admin- 

 istered by business men from its own ranks. The general sentiment 

 seems to have been voiced by the convention of Wholesale Lumber 

 Distributors, at Chicago, on November 23, the resolutions of which 

 read in part : 



"For the good of the industry, the Government should discontinue and elimi- 

 nate the restrictions and price-fixing on lumber products. . . . Government 

 efforts should be directed to furthering trade, based upon the law of supply and 

 demand, in opening commercial channels." 



245 



