What The Cut Price Means To The Small Home Builder and to the Dealer

Lots of people think that a cut price lumber situation such as applies in the Los Angeles district on retail lumber, is a great benefit to the builder, and therefore has its compensating good side, but it is very doubtful if the good effects of too low lumbei prices balances the damage done.

The average small home in the Los Angeles district uses between ten and twelve thousand feet of lumber. At five dollars a thousand higher price, the small home builder would pay fiIty or sixty dollars more for his home, gross price.

But look what an advance of five dollars a thousand would mean to the building industry, and to the, individual 'lu,mbermen. It would mean consistent and substantial prosperity, in place of the demoralized conditions that have prevailed for so long a time. It would mean that the dealer could deliver better goods, give better service, and be better public servants than they can possibly be when the sales price hovers eternally around the cost mark.

And the benefits would travel backward through thousands of other people. The men at the docks, the owners and erews of the lumber hauling ships, the mil,ls and their employes in the north, and right back to the men of the logging camps, and their families, would be directly benefited by a presperous price condition in Southern California.

Compared with these other possible benefits, the rlittle extra price the builder would pay for his lumber-and it would still be a comparatively low price-looks little by contrast.