Vagabond Editorials

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No such startling piece of news has come to the lumber industry since the announcement in the summer of 1933 that there would be a lumber Code. And this announcement eliminates from the lumber Code the biggest bone of contention connected with codifying the industry. "\ll/hat will the immediate effect be?" "FIow will it affect lumber sales and demand?" "What will happen to prices?" These and various other pertinent questions are on every lip, and the entire industry goes into the early days of the New Year with eyes and ears concentrated on the whats, whys, wheres, and whens that naturally follow this great change.

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Price fixing was doomed from the beginning, because it could only operate so far as it was voluntary. The idea of enforcing such a provision was never intelligent. I said that in this column at the time it began, and have been saying so ever since. And, knowing the lumber industry as I do, I never had.the faintest conception that it would be voluntarily entered into by anything like ALL the producers of lumber. And, again, since nothing less than maximum participation could possibly solve the problem, I have never had faith in its usefulness.

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Now it is discarded, and we shall see what the reaction will be. In this regard I decline to predict results. Had it happened several months ago, the result would have had dire effects that can hardly be anticipated today. Today we have gotten rid of large surpluses of lumber in all parts of the country, and there is much less reason to fear a drastic slump in lumber prices than there would have been last summer.

There are those *nr ;";"a.an"a as soon as the first shock of price fixing elimination is over and the law of supply and demand again takes charge of the situation, lumber prices will seek a natural level that will be decidedly healthful. Surplus items will drop, and in dropping may find a level at which they will move more freely. Scarce items are very likely to rise. There can be no doubt but that fixing a price minimum automatically fixes a maximum also. It just naturally works that way. People never pay more for things than the price shown in the catalogue. So the fixing of lumber prices have undoubtedly in many instances reduced the market prices of those items. The case of Southern export lumber is one in point. The establishment of a minimum considerably below the market price prevailing at that time immediately brought the maximum down to the minimum level.

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Somehow I don't believe there is going to be any hurtful shock immediately following the cancelling of minirnum prices. I am more inclined to think that within a very short time things will adjust themselves, and that the lumber situation will be materially helped and strengthened by the change. If nothing else, termination of the continual news stories going out from Washington that fixing lumber prices too high has killed the public interest in building, will be helpful.

Yes sir, I think this big and sudden change that comes to this industry just at the inception of the New Year is going to bring a return of health and happiness to the lumber industry and to the lumber people I think everything is pointing that way, anyway. And I think we should show our faith by getting ready for it. Let us not be like the congregation of people in the old days who gathered together one Sunday during a drouth for the particular purpose of praying for rain. One of the leaders of the congregation looked into their earnest faces and said to one of his colleagugs-"Jhsss people look like they have the faith needed to perform this miracle." And the other replied"Yes, they do, but f notice none of them have brought their umbrellas."

It would be a good arrl"r-r", this lumber industry to "bring their umbrellas," and not only look but act as though this industry were going to get well. And if they WORK likewise, it will be helpful. We have many stout tools to work with that we did not have a year ago. There are innumerable conditions that lend us intelligent optimism. There are millions of people who need new homes. There are added millions living in obsolete homes. Practically all homes and other such buildings are badly in need of repair. The entire country is in need of paint, and of various other sidelines that the lumber industry sells along with its own product. There is money galore in this country to build with. And there is a tremendous urge right now to get this building going.

Is there any doubt but that when I say "Happy New Year" to the lumber industry, I am prophecying great and good things that can reasonably be expected to come?

East B.y Hoo Hoo Distributes 400 Food Kegs to Needy

Breaking their previous record by 50 kegs, Hoo Hoo Club No. 29, Oakland, distributed 400 kegs of groceries at Christmas to needy famiiies of the East Bay district. Distribution was made as in previous years by the Salvation Army.

The committee in charge of the work of getting the subscriptions for the kegs and filling them was as follows:

Miland Grant, chairman, Henry M. Hink, Earle Johnson, C. I. Gilbert, Joe Todd, G. F. Bonnington, Larue Woodson and Gordon Pierce.

With MacDonald & Bergstrom

L. A. "Beck" Beckstrom is now connected with MacDonald & Bergstrom, Inc., of Los Angeles and will call on the retail lumber trade in the Los Angeles district. "Beck" has been associated with the wholesale lumber business in Los Angeles for about fifteen years and is well know-n to the trade in that territory. He was formerly with Patten-Blinn Lumber Co.

Lumber Secretaries Meet

The secretaries of the various lumber groups in Southern California held a dinner meeting at the Rosslyn Hotel, Los Angeles, Friday evening, December 14.

BRAND

Treated and Stocked at Our Southern California Plant for fmmediate Delivery to Lumber Dealers.

Buy "BAXCO" for Service

a Prompt shipments from our complete stocks.

r Quick pick-ups from local stocks of jobbing yardc.

o Exchange service-dealertc untreated lumber for our cteosoted stock plus charge for treating.

o Treating dealerts own lumber-mill shipments to our dock or truck lots from dealerto yard.