CONTINUOUS FOREST PRODUCTION 55 



make any net return whatever above direct current operating costs. 

 Therefore, neither price fixing nor cost accounting will be effective in 

 preventing all sales below cost of production. 



On the other hand, price fixing in this industry has no menace toward 

 the consumer. The condition of the industry in regard to overload of 

 standing timber and over investment in plants, etc., make it absolutely 

 imperative to move as much timber as possible on to the market 

 each year; the competition of substitutes likewise precludes general 

 rise in limiber price. The success of the organization will necessarily 

 be based solely on savings which it is now known positively are possible 

 in many directions, together with education of the consumer which 

 win increase the use of wood. Only one condition might arise that 

 would be unjust to the consumer, namely, that in certain localities, 

 where substitutes are not active, prices might be shoved up while in 

 others they were reasonable. As a safeguard against such action, the 

 act authorizing this association should specifically prohibit discrimina- 

 tion in prices between localities and between different purchasers of 

 the same class either by the Central Association or its members. This 

 simple safeguard is ample, though additional provisions of the sort 

 possess little threat from the standpoint of the industry. As radical 

 advance in prices is impossible anyway, although if such advance were 

 necessary the consumer could stand a slight increase, if we may take the 

 vast sums spent for wines and liquors, tobaccoes, movies, etc., as any 

 evidence of the resources of the average consumer. 



As has been pointed out already, there is only one safe and sure safe- 

 guard to prices, which at the same time squares absolutely with the public's 

 immediate and long-time needs. This, as has been indicated before, 

 consists in placing all the forests of the country on the basis of con- 

 tinuous yield. If this be done, the first step, after providing for regenera- 

 tion of cut over areas by natural and inexpensive means and the protec- 

 tion of all the forests against fire, would be limitation of the cut of each 

 producing unit to what it will produce permanently. This, at one stroke, 

 means that the amount of timber seeking immediate market would be 

 reduced from 2,200 bilhons of feet (the amount now in private owner- 

 ship) to little if any over what the market is now taking annually. The 

 psychological effect on the market must be evident. The selling problem 

 would be tremendously simplified since it then becomes only a matter of 

 increasing either the domestic or foreign market to the extent of a few 

 billions of feet annually. As compared to this problem, the selling 

 problem involved in getting 2,200 billions, worked under the timber 



