\(/hat Shall We Do With \(/est Coast Lumbefl

(Continued from Page 15) consumer in the most convenient and inexpensive form for his use. Structural steel for a building or bridge is-delivered to the job, the various members fabricated, fitted, numbered from the blue print and ready for assemblage. Northwestern timber treating companies have taken a leaf out of the same book by furnishing timbers for bridge construction cut, framed, bored and treated-ready for erection at a minimum of time and cost. Work done during the past year by one of the Association's engineers, Mr. Pauw, opened up promising opportunities for reducing the cost of timber construction and selling the builder service as well as material-bv the fabrication of timbers at the sawmill, where such work cau often be most efficiently and economically done.

I look forward to the time when fabricated timbers will be furnished for all sorts of structures-bridges, oil derricks, airplane hangars and buildings, cut and framed to either individual oi standard designs, as freely as structural steel is now furnished.

I look forward to the time when, aside from the cut-to-order house. yard lumber for everyday construction will include many items cui and fitted for their places in a building in accordance wiih standard multiples, without the need for furthei fabrication on the iob. The more ways of this kind we can find, to sell service and reduction in construction costs-alo_ng with our material, the more effectively will we hold markets for lumber.

Curtailment or Trade promotion _. The ques-tion has frequently been asked me of late whether the "way out" for the West Coast-lumber industry ti.. i" Cuitiif*e"io, in Trade Prom.otion; whether we may not be in ar"g., oi.rit"iii"s tumber out ot its market, whereas aggressive trade promotion woull balarrce the^ equation of supply and demand without ""i..iitv-i.. curtailment ?

There is,. of course, no question that the efforts of the industrv and ot rts Association should be concentrated on market e*pansioi. Adjustme't- of -production to the actual o"-ind "t trr.-ii-"'i.'"i.1 essary to the financial welfare of. the industrv, p"iti""ii.iy-1"-", emergency like the present. But whatever degr# "r .r.tiil-i,ni-*"v be necessary-one year or another-there is no question that the fundamental need of the West Coast lumber industry is to expand its markets by every means at its command.

One of the most thoughtful and discriminating analyses of this problem I have ever seen was written last summer by Mr. William G. Reed of Shelton. Mr. Reed points out the dangers in curtailment as a possible form of "commercial suicide" and the far more constructive answer to be found through trade promotion on a scale commensurate with the size of this industry. He then sug- gests a direct tie-in between curtailment and trade promotion, by levying on the operating mill a substantial sum per thousand feet of actual production, to be used for trade promotion purposes exclusively. He would make this amount large enough to serve as a real restraint upon uneconomic production or price cutting, In other words, let the mills that want to operate support trade promotion with real dollars instead of pennies. Let the ruills who don't want to operate under such conditions help to balance the demand and supply by shutting down.

I wonder how many operators here would subscribe to Mr. Reed's suggestion. Or I wonder how many operators here would subscribe twe.nty-fiv9 cents out of every dollar's advance in average prices during 1932 for extending the markets of West Coast woods. Accepting trade promotion as the real answer to our problem. rather than curtailment in production, are we ready to disiard the South American blowgun and attack it with real artillery?

The best definition of an optimist I have heard is one who sees the opportunities in every difficulty. The West Coast lumber industry today is beset with difficulty. But we cannot and must not lose faith in our industry. We cannot and must not acknowledge defeat. The times that try men's souls are the very times that haie produced the most creative and constructive effoits in the historv of the world. That should be our spirit in dealing with the pr...r,i situation. And it is my earlest hope that in some way we may create, out of our present trouble-s, an aggressive and united p.ogr"m for the permanent betterment of this industrv.