The Japs A.quired a Great Timber Emptre In the \(/estern Pacific

For the past 17 months the same identi,cal wall of silence that descended upon the conquered countries of Europe when the Nazis took over, has covered like a black fog the Islands and other conquered territories of the Western Pacific that fell into the ruthless hands of the Japs. No news comes through. Concerning what has happened to the great timbered sections of the Philippines and those other huge island possessions that the Japs now hold is only conjecture. American owners, and others interested in those forests and their products, know nothing. The Japs came in. Then came silence.

In discussing the fabulous wealth acquired by the Japs in those Western Pacific territories, the press generally entirely overlooks one of their most valuable grabs, namely, the forests. Practically all of the timber wealth of that huge island world, is hardwood; and practically all of the hardwoods are of the more valuable sort, cabinet woods, and others of high quality and exceptional usefulness.

In the Philippine Islands alone there is estimated to stand abut 464 billion feet of commercial timber, all hardwoods, mostly cabinet woods. When the Japs struck, there were more than one hundred sawmills, some of them equipped in the most modern fashion for making quality lumber. operating in the Philippines. Many of them were owned in the United States and England. Citizens of these two countries owned large timber possessions in the Philippines. Bataan Peninsula, which became immortal when the heroic American and Philippine armies made their last stand there, has probably produced more high grade cabinet wood than any other territory of equal size in the entire world.

For in the Philippines as nowhere else on earth, fine hardwoods and cabinet woods grow in solid stands like Long Leaf Pine forests in the South, tall, straight, cylindrical-trunked trees with no branches for twenty, thirty, or forty feet from the ground. Here, and nowhere else on earth, cabinet woods of tall, straight-grained trees, knew nature's mass production. And these mighty forests, where hardwood timbers forty and fifty feet in length can be cut for special uses are all in the hands of the Japs. That they are using them in their program of empire building, who can doubt. Just what they are doing, no one has the faintest information. Most of the timber that grows in the Philippines is what is called "Philippine Mahogany," although there are more than a hundred other commercial species of hardwoods produced in those Islands, many of them immeasurably higher in quality than the regular "Philippine."

But the Philippines are not the only great areas of the Western Pacific that grow hardwoods in great forests. The best authority we know estimates that in Burma, Thailand, and Indo China there stands 500 billion feet of commercial timber. fn Borneo there is 400 billion feet. New Guinea and tributary islands hold about 300 billion feet. These estimates are the best available at the moment. As far as the United States is concerned the Japs grabbed the world's supply of Teak-that great boat-building wood-lvhen they took over the Philippines, Burma, and Borneo. Most of our Teak came from Rangoon and Bangkok. It was used mainly for the superstructure of ships such as decking, deck-houses, rails, etc. Some Teak used to come from India, but not now. While the United States got the bulk of shipments of Philippine hardwoods before the war, the other islands such as the Netherlands East Indies, Borneo, and many other wooded islands, shipped their wood products to England and other E"uropean countries. We got little of it. Borneo is bigger than the Philippines, and nearly as heavily timbered. One authority fixes the reserved forests of Borneo at approximately twenty million acres. Not many accurate figures are available. Away back in the year 1915 Northern Borneo alone shipped twenty million feet of hardwood lumber and timbers, mostly to Hongkong and the British. That will furnish some idea of the value of the timbered possessions of that one Island.

Several months ago the Japanese radio announced the confiscation of all forests in the Netherlands East Indies, and said that the Jap government was strongly promoting the production of Teak in those islands. There are n.o natural forests of any size in Java. There they grorv Teak like they do rubber trees.

All we can do is guess what is happening to the 1700 billion feet of valuable hardwood timber in the island possessions of the Japs today. But their value will compare favorably with any other source of wealth taken over by the invaders. Well qualified authorities estimate the value of the timber in the Philippines alone at four billion dollars. If the other timber possessions secured are worth anything like as much, then it might be shown that the Japs secured more actual rvealth in timber than they did in rubber, or in any other properties attained by their invasions.

And the civilized world lost its greatest reservoir of cabinet woods, for it is unlikely that all the rest of the world grows as much valuable hardwood timber as can be found in the Philippines, New Guinea, Borneo, Burma, Thailand, and Indo China combined.

Which is another splendid physical, economic, and financial reason for destroying the aggression of the Japs,

MPR 381--Stock ScreenGoods

Washington, May l2.-Internal adjustments of ceiling prices for stock screen goods were announced today by the Office of Price Administration in an action which cushioned the pressure of advancing raw materials and labor costs so that consumers' price's generally will remain unchanged from their present March, 1942, levels.

A squeeze on the production level since July, 1942, was relaxed by the new regulation which permits an increase in price to the manufacturer of.7.5 per cent on southern pine and hardwood screen products and holds Ponderosa pine screen goods at the existing level. The increase is absorbed mainly by retailers whose margins are reduced about 7.5 per cent and jobbers whose margins are reduced about 4 per cent.

To the consumer the action means an advance of about 4 per cent of General Maximum Price Regulation prices for southern pine and hardwood screen products and a reduction of 3.3 per cent in the March, 1942, retail prices for Ponderosa pine. Since Ponderosa pine products comprise 55 per cent of the screen goods sold annually, the reduction in the items accounting for the larger part of the volume balances the increase so that the general level of consumer prices remains about the same.

The action-Maximum Price Regulation 381 (Stock Screen Goods), effective May 17,1943, covers screen doors, combination screen and storm doors, extension window screens, and knocked-down window screen frames in pat_ ters, specifications and sizes which are all listed in the regulation. Sales by manufacturers, jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, and mail order houses are afiected.

However, combination storm and screen doors included in direct mill sales of 15,00O pounds or more of stock mill_ work which moves by rail to one or more places or of 12,000 pounds or more of stock millwork which moves by truck to a single destination are not covered by today,s action and remain under Maximum price Regulation No. 293 (Stock Millwork).

Phenolic Regin Glues

At a conference of the Lumber and Lumber products Division, War Production Board, and attended by tech_ nicians of the Forest Products Laboratory.and other gov_ ernment agencies, it was decided that phenolic resin glues should be the approved bonding materials for the laminat_ ing of solid wood parts for marine use.

It was agreed that only phenolic resin glues would pro_ vide a strong enough waterproof bond durable in salt wa_ ter, and that urea glue should not be used because of its lack of efficien,cy under marine conditions.

Accordingly, WPB has set up a pilot plant under the supervision of the Forest Products Laboratory of Madison, Wisconsin, to determine technical manufacturing proce_ dures and to recommend suita,ble specifications io avoid poor workmanship and unsatisfactory material entering this important program.

Toggers Keep War Production Rotling

Pcul Bunyqn's crews keep the Westwood plcrnt in production by continuous delivery oI logs. Wcrtime conditions imposed dilliculties crnd hcndiccrps, but the show gtoes on.

Red River production lor 1942 was the lcrgest in 28 yecrs oI Westwood's history. Credit goes to pctriotic workers qs well cs to ccrelul plcrnning cnd organization. Concentrction on production hcrs not detracted lrom estclblished prqctices ol lorest conseryation crnd protection.

*PA['L BT'NYAN'S" PRODUCTS

SoIt Ponderosc cnd Sugcrr Pine LUMBEN MOUI.DING PLWOOD VENETIAN BUND STATS

The RED RIYER TUMBER C0.

Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, From glen to glen and down the mountain side, The summer's gone, and all the roses falling, It's you, it's you must go and I must bide. But come ye back when summer's in the meadow, Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow, It's f'il be here, in strnshine or in shadow, Oh, Danny Boy, I love you, love you so. >k**

"Danny Boy," of which the above is the first of the only two stanzas, has become one of the most beloved of all war songs. The words were writtenby Fred E. Weatherly, who achieved the creation of an immortal sob song out of what was one of England's happiest folk songs. "Londonderry Air" is the name of the tune of "Danny Boy," and has been sung for generations in Britain as a kindlS happy song. Mr. Weatherly wrote the words of "Danny Boy" to that air, creating two of the most pathetic stanzas in English literature. The second and last vers€ goes:

But when ye come and all the flowers are dying, If I am dead, as dead I well may be, Ye'll come and find the place where I am lying, And kneel and say an ave there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me, And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be, For you will bend and tell me that you love me, And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.

During the first World War the great foreign songstress, Madame Schumann-Heink, began singing "Danny Boy" as a war song, and the beautiful music and heart-broken words caught public fancy like a prairie fire. It became her favorite song, and in history will be forever coupled with her name. She is gone now. But "Danny Boy" will live as long as the human heart responds to beautiful words of love and devotion.

If the philosophy in the following little poem is true, then the millions of Victory Gardens growing throughout this land will bring to us something even better than the green and growing things. It was Dorothy Frances Gurney who wrote:

"The kiss of the siln for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth, One is nearer God's heart in a garden, Than anywhere else on earth."

England has come to look upon her late great poet, Rudyard Kipling, not only as a most gifted and inspired poet, but even as a prophet. In "The Lady of the Lake," Sir Walter Scott makes his mountain soothsayer explain his gift of prophecy in this way: "Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, and coming events cast their shadows before." Don't know to what source Kipling would ascribe his successful prophecies were he alive today, but that he had some most definite premonitions, cannot be denied. For instance, in his poem "The Islanders," we find him warning complacent people about the necessity for arming the British fsles for defense from without, in this way:

{< rl. ,1.

, "But ye say 'It will mar our comfort.' Ye say'It will minish our trade.' Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel

Ere ye learn how a gun is laid?

For the low, red glare to the Southward, When the raided coast towns burn?

Light ye shall have on that lessonBut little time to learn." **,i

General John J. Pershing was for many years credited to a large degree with the authorship of those now famous words of the first World War-"Lafayette, we are here !" But Pershing, always honorable as becomes a great soldier, at all times denied that he was the man. And finally when the General published his memoirs in 1931, he paid tribute therein to the real author of the phrase, Col. C. E. Stanton. Up to that time Col. Stanton had said little on the subject, but when Pershing thus pointed him out, he admitted the authorship, and told of the occasion. He said that the address containing the phrase was made at Pic Pus Cemetery, Paris, France, July 4, 1917, and was the culmination of the peroration in the speech. Col. Stanton preserved the original manuscript. While it was undoubtedly his most famous remark and will go down into American history with many others of the better lorown patriotic slogans, it was not exactly what might be called a ..fash in the pan.,' For they do say that Col. Stanton was a most gifted speaker with a well known aptitude for strihing and unusual phraseology, and that for many years he was a great favorite on Army programs, social and otherwise, and was not only a fine orator but a remarkably fine story teller. **!t

As this is written the nation is nearly as deeply disturbed over labor matters as it is thrilled over the grand feats of arms of our soldiers. Law makers, seeking authority for legislating against strikes during this emergency, might find them in many of the words of a certain Carpenter of Nazareth who worked at His trade and took pride in His workmanship, and who said to His fellow workers: (Luke, Chapter 3, Verse 14) ; "And Jesus said to them, .do violence to no man-and be content with your wages."' ,f**

Speaking of the labor situation (and who, kind friends, does NOT speak of the labor situation in these days of strikes and strike threats?) did you ever stop to think what would happen if the FARMERS of the nation went out on strike? As Mr. Shakespeare wrote: ..awake your senses that you may the better judge," and give that possibility a little thought. The farmer (whom all thinking men are worrying about since food has become so scarce and so vital) works anywhere from Z0 to g0 hours a week Suppose he gets tired of hearing all this strike threat tal! short day and week talk, over-time demands, etc., and rising up on his hind legs decides and announces that he is golng to play the one-sided game in which he finds himself, no longer ! Suppose he says he'll work like other war workers, no longer, no harder, for no less pay, for no less overtime, and with no fewer privileges, such as union rules, etc. ! Suppose he says that from now forward he's going to act as though he had equal rights with other workers, the same privileges as other men, and unless he gets them, the old plow is going to rust in the furrow, the old reaper in the shed! What then? ***

You know what then! We'd all starve! That's all. We rivould not only go on short rations quick, but so would millions of other people all over the world who are now eating our good grub via the Lend-Lease route. Our war effort would bog down like a General Grant tank in a river of quicksand ! Our whole national set-up would explode with a sharp report, and come down in a fine drizzl* pronto ! Tdk about a threatened strike that would really scare people ! A farmer's strike would make all othei strikes combined look like a Sunday School picnic t Of course the farmer isn't going to strike ! He's too good a citizen to even threaten it. He's going to keep right on getting the short end of the stick atall times and he's going to keep on working twice as long as the other fellow, for half the pay. He knows he could upset the old apple cart right in the middle of the stream if he wanted to be as means as some folks, but he isn't built that way. Seems to me there's a touch of the Good Samaritan in the farmer. He knows he is getting a bum deal, but works all the harder because the nation is in trouble and has to have help. I admire this farmer tremendously. IIe's a helpful, loyal citizen. And if someone asks you who is the most important guy on the home front-the one who is doing a lot more than anyone else to help win this -a1'-/ou needn,t hesitate for a moment for your reply; it's the fellow who works long hours for short pay so that others can work short hours for long pay-and keeps right on working. He may gripe a little-who wouldn't-but he never stops plowing, God Bless him !

Which reminds me of the farmer who wrote in to his weekly paper. He said he was happy to report that the cost of living was definitely dropping in the county seat stores; cucumbers that had been 29 cents each, were on sale for 25 cents each. He continued: ..As many of them nasty things as I've throwed at woodpeckers all my life, f never expected to live to see them piled on a counter on pink paper and marked two bits each.,' **r* t:f*

And then there was the farmer who took an extra swallow of hard cider and was heard to remark to one of his friends that whoever married his daughter Jane would certainly get a prize. The next day eleven soldiers showed up from the near-by army camp to find out what the prize vyas.

An air raid warden posted a printed sign in front of the elevator on the thirty-second foor of an office building, that read: "fn case of an air raid-be calm.', And some wag wrote underneath it: "Calm, he says.',

George R. Stratemeyer Retires

George R. StratemeYer, vicd-president of the California Panel & Veneer Company, Los Angeles, retired from active business on May 31. He was the company's oldest employe, and went to work for them in 1918 as a salesman, sPecializing in hardrvood plywoods and veneers, calling on the commercial and retail lumber trade.

George had the friendship and esteem of all he had business dealings with, and they learned to appraise him as a splendid gentleman. He was the kind of a man the lumbermen liked to do business with. He did a fine job for his company and did his work in a most skillful and intelligent fashion. The dealers will miss his friendly calls'

As a conclusion to a very successful business career, the officials and employes gave him a party and big send-off at the company's offices, and he was the recipient of some beautiful gifts. His home is in Montebello but he plans to spend much of the time at his ranch in Riverside.

R. Mulholland, who has been with the company since 1923, and president of the Baker Steel & Tube Co., will succeed him as vice-president of the California Panel & Veneer Company.

New Building Completed

L. H. Eubank & Son, Inglewood, Calif., manufacturers of ironing boards, cabinets and mantels, but now engaged entirely in war work, recently completed a new building, 40 by 68 feet, which will house a planing mill. The building has truss roof construction and a concrete floor. The company now has a total of 17,000 square feet of floor space under roof.

Machinery for the planing mill has been purchased and is norv being installed.

Minimum Trucking Rates for State of Washington Established

Published minimun trucking rates for the State of.Washington have been established as the charges to be used in calculating delivered prices for West Coast logs to destinations other than in towable waters, the Office of Price Administration announced.

Previously, sellers used their actual transportation truck costs in calculating these delivered prices. This had the disadvantage of uncertainty and lack of uniformity, and caused some undesirable diversion of logs.

The new rates are provided in Amendment No. 4 to Revised Maximum Price Regulation No. 161 (West Coast Logs), and become effective May 24, 1943.

The amendment also makes the following two additions to the regulation:

1. It establishes fixed additions which may be made to prices of logs of long lengths.

2. It fixes a price on a new grade of "ponton logs," when allocated by the War Production Board.

The new schedule of transportation charges will be applicable to shipments of logs for Oregon as well as Washington, sin,ce no corresponding set of rates is available for Oregon.

"The Washington rates represent a very convenient standard for arriving at a fixed basis from which to compute trucking costs, and have been adopted as a standard solely for that reason," OPA said.

The new rates are as follows:

1. By rail. The common carrier rail rates.

2. By Truck: A base rate of $1.06 per 1,000 feet of logs, boardfeet measure, to whi'ch shall be added the follorving rates per 1,000 feet per mile (including any fraction of a mile) :

Class "A" Roads, 8f cents; Class "A-1" Roads 9f cents; Class "B" Roads, 13 cents; Class "C" Roads, 16 cents; Class "D" Roads. 27 cemts.

Ruth Hanson Joins Waacs

Ruth Hanson, West Coast Screen Co., Los Angeles, became a member of the WAACS in April and is in training at Des Moines, Iowa. She is a daughter of Francis G. Hanson, head of West Coast Screen Co.

Pulp Wood Cutting and Manufacturing Dollar Limit on Field Procesged PD-1A Deemed Essential Activity

A serious handicap in the paper-making industry and in the procurement of the necessary pulp from which moit types of paper is made was removed by the ruling of the War Manpower Commission placing the cutting of pulp wood, and the manufacture of pulp as well as certain kinds of paper, in the categories of essential activities, Arthur G. Wakeman, director of the WPB Pulp and papei Division, stated today at Washington.

The paper shortage which has confronted the country for some time resulted from shortages in certain types o{ essential pulp used in the manufacture of paper, and in turn that shortage lvas due to the fact that not enough suitable wood was being cut, Wakeman explained.

Carrying the protrlem one step further, the failure in thc woods was directly due to lack of manpower and the fact that while lumbering and woodcutting in general were con_ sidered as essential occupations by the WMC, many wood cutters 'll'ere drafted or transferred to other activities.

With the publication of the Activities Occupational Bul_ letin, No. 27, which lists the production of pulp, paperboard and certain converted products as essential activities and many workers in this industry as in essential occupation, the pulp and paper division believes many of its -anpo*e, problems will be materially reduced.

Increased to $500

In line with its policy of decentralization, the WpB has raised the dollar limit of pD-lA applications processed in the field from 9100 to 9500, efiective May g.

Beginning May 8, all PD-IA applications involving not more than $500 worth of material on which priority assist_ ance is requested have been processed in either the District or Regional Offices according to the direction of the respect_ ive Regional Directors, except where specifically otherwise directed by the Director of the Distribution Bureau.

In all other caSes, PD-IA applications have been for_ warded by each field office to Washington, D. C., for rout_ ing in accordance with the regular procedure for process_ ing such forms in Washington.

The new order means that norv more than eighty per cent of all PD-1A applications will be handled entirely by the field offices.

Jim Farley At Scotia

Jim Farley, assistant Western sales manager, The pa_ cific Lumber Company, San Francisco, is making his headquarters for the present at the company's mill at Scotia, Calif.

Serving As Purchasing Agent

C. H. Chapman, Santa Ana retail lumber dealer, is acting as purchasing agent for Orange County.