How Lumber Looks

While this page primarily is intended to give an angle on the wholesale market, there is a condition prevailing in the Southern California (Los Angeles) rnarket that calls for some comment.

There is, of course, a very direct bearing or connection betrfeen the prosperity of the wholesale lumberman or millman and the activities of the retailer. Especially if said retailer is operating at a profit.

We all know that the yards in this part of the state could not expect to be doing the volume that they enjoyed in 1922-23, but it is hard to understand the wailings of un-

' WELCOME SHRINERS

If the Los Anseles offices of The California Lumber Merchant can be of any service to the visiting Lumbermen Shriners, d.rring the Convention, we do hope that you will call on us.

Our offices are downtown, in the Central Building, Sixth and Main Streets, phone VAndike 4565, and our entire force will be on their toes, the entire week, at your command.

profitable business, coming from all sides, with the volume that these dealers have to draw from. Building permits in Lo_s_ Angeles have really been phenomenal, coniidering tfie dullness of the real estate market, for the past sixty days, still no retailer will admit that his volurne or his profits are anyways near what they should be.

Is he selling too low, is he cutting t{re other fellow's price in an attempt to hold up post-war volume, or is he letting the one or two other fellows grab all the sales?

We do not attempt to suggest the solution, there surely is onc, and it moEt assuredly is the lumberman's right and privilege to secwe a price for his materials, carrying a legitimate profit.

Correct this cdndition and a great deal will have been done toward strengthening the wholesale market, none too good at this writing.

Dealers have been buying from hand to mouth, since the first of the year, possibly with justification, but hard on the man with lumber on the way and with stocks on hand, waiting for a buyer.

We believe that the mills are in a more receptive frarne o_f mind than they have been at any time since they began their curtailment program.'

The eastern market, from all reports, has not developed Ite volume that was predicted, foreign trade is in fair shape, still the majority of these mills look to domestic water shipments for their volume, and Calilornia should supply t{re large bulk of this, and at better prices.

A climb up the ladder would help everyone.

_ A telegraphic report, on the morning of the 3oth, from San Francisco, has this to say: