HOBBS WAI.t IUMBER GO.

tVill Discuss Methods Providing Relief For Retail Lumber Yards

Methods of providing immediate relief for retail lumber yards and retailers of lumber products from squeezes caused by increased lumber prices will be discussed in New York, April 15, at a meeting with members of the industry, the Office of Price Administration announced today.

About 2,000 retailers are expected to attend the meeting which will be held at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel beginning q! 10 a.m.; Peter A. Stone, price executive of the Lumber Branch, will preside. Also representing OpA will be Henry J. Eckstein acting head of the distribution section, and Arthur Larson, chief counsel for the branch.

OPA announced that temporary ceilings for retail lumber and retail lumber products would be discussed. The temporary ceilings may be placed on all products not presently covered by the Maximum Price Regulation No. 215 (Distribution Yard Sales of Softwood Lumber) which placed a ceiling.on some retail lumber items for specifiecl classes of purchasers while other items and purchasers were left under the control of the General Maximum Price Regulation.

Retailers of products subject to the General Maximum Price Regulation have been squeezed in many instances by authorized advances since March, 1942, in the price of lumber at the mill and wholesble levels. The temporary regulation is planned to provide relief until a permanent regulation is drafted on the basis of cost studies now being conducted by OPA on a nationwide basis.

The interim regulation will apply to dealers in Maryland, Delaware, eastern Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and all of the New England states. Similar meetings will be held in other regions at dates to be announced later by OPA for discussion of temporary ceilings for their sales.

Sales at retail covered by Regulation No. 215 will remain subject to that regulation, and only those sales not covered by the regulation will be aftected by the proposed action.

All trade associations and trade papers have been notified of the meeting and have been requestd by OPA to inform their members and all known dealers who are not members of their groups to attend the meeting.

The trade associations who were asked to coorperate with OPA are: Greater New York Lumber Dealers' Association; Metropo[tan Lumber Dealers' Associates, Inc., New York; Middle Atlantic Lumbermen's Association, Philadelphia; New Jersey Lumbermen's Association, New Newark, N. J.; New York Lumber Trade Association, Inc., of New York, and the Northeastern Retail Lumbermen's Association, Rochester, N. Y.

The next scheduled meeting will be held at Detroit on April 21 at a time and place to be announced later.