tion and distribution. The difficulties, of course, are very 

 large, more especially as there are some 40,000 sawmills in 

 the country. 



I would like to make this general observation, that 

 there has been agitation in the lumber trade, or among the 

 public, for the last twenty-five years for some kind of Gov- 

 ernment grade and Government control of that type. Some 

 of the branches of the lumber trade themselves have recom- 

 mended measures of that order. My own feeling is that if 

 we can develop these things thru the internal machinery of 

 the trade itself, as a matter of self-government in the trade, 

 that we will have secured something even more fundamental 

 than that, and that is the sense of self-reliance in the Am- 

 erican people. 



The trades can do these things infinitely more efficient- 

 ly than Government can do them. If the Government does 

 them, it means the further establishment of bureaucracy, 

 and one of the most dominant notes of all Government bu- 

 reaucracy is to try to grab something more, some new func- 

 tion which it can undertake. 



Now the inefficiency of bureaucracy in the conduct of 

 its business needs no elaboration from me. Its inefficiencies 

 are inherent in the character of its works. The clear object 

 of good government is to keep governmental functions down 

 to the minimum. 



This is fundamentally a question of developing business 

 standards and business ethics, developing them in the in- 

 dustries themselves for the protection of the consumer and 

 the trade, for effectuating simplifications that will make for 

 economy in production and distribution, and to give actual 

 guaranties, if we can devise them, that will go straight thru 

 to the consumers. 



One of the great objects in this work is that we should 

 make a demonstration to the public that the lumber industry 

 is able to clean its own house, and set its ethical standards 

 at such a high level as to be beyond all challenge, and in that 

 way we are able, if we may succeed here, to avoid the old 

 and much mooted question of governmental interference. 



51 



