A NATIONAL LUMBER AND FOREST POLICY 353 



always interests ready to inaugurate new mill enterprises when im- 

 proved transportation or other factors seem to offer a favorable 

 chance for an undertaking. 



These are essentially the conditions that make for a periodic over- 

 flow of production and create unstable conditions. Some persons may 

 be so favorably situated in the matter of high-grade products, low-cost 

 production, or other factors, that they can meet even the extraordinary 

 fluctuations of industrial conditions. But for the industry as a whole 

 there exists an element of uncertainty because of the urgent pressure 

 of stumpage for production. I do not see how there can be a per- 

 manent basis of conservatism, stability, and industrial strength so long 

 as this condition exists. 



The public is concerned because of the injury and loss that accom- 

 panies demoralized industrial conditions, and because under such con- 

 ditions there is increased waste in lumbering, protection from fire is 

 less efficient, and the difficulties in the way of forest replacement are 

 intensified. Failures that occur at such times often result in a transfer 

 of lands, thereby increasing the tendency to centralization that may 

 operate disadvantageously to the public in the long run. 



THE LABOR PROBLEM 



Of far-reaching importance both to the industry and to the public 

 is the problem of labor. It is the problem that is most insistently press- 

 ing, and perhaps in some aspects the most perplexing of any before 

 the industry. Some features are peculiar to the lumber industry, 

 and the ultimate solution will doubtless require a program 

 especially adapted to the conditions of the forests and the sawmills. 

 Temporary adjustments will doubtless be found, but a final solution 

 will come, I believe, only with the placing of the lumber industr}i on 

 a basis of stability and permanence. 



THE PROBLEM OF WANING TIMBER SUPPLIES 



Any serious consideration of the conditions requisite to a sound lum- 

 ber industry brings us face to face with the question of raw materials, 

 the husbanding and careful use of existing supplies, and the renewal 

 of our forests after lumbering. We have been lulled into a feeling 

 of security in recent years because we have an estimated total quan- 

 tity of standing timber in excess of twenty-five hundred billion feet. 

 The very situation to which I have referred, of industrial instability 

 due to the pressure of large quantities of stumpage for production. 



