and the NEW YEAR

Supplied with logs and labor the sawmills could have produced perhaps another 100,000,000 feet per month. This is another way of saying that labor has been our bottleneck. Thousands of men have been lost from the woods and mills to the Selective Service. Thousands more have left the lumber industry induced by the higher wages and advantages offered by the shipyards, airplane factories and other war industries. To partially offset the difference in wages the operators in the Douglas fir region granted increases from 8 to 15 per cent or more so that at the present time the average scale in the mills, small and large, is about 96 cents and in the logging camps more than $1.15 per hour. Loss of men to other industries was stopped somewhat by the War Manpower Commission order.of September making it more difficult for workers to shift from one industry to another in 12 western states. Even the. Selective Service recognized the essentiality of lumber workers and Director Major General Lewis B. Hershey said.:

"Without the lumber which the northwest loggers and mill workers produce, America's great army cannot be adequately equipped. To help insure the continued production of lumber, the agencies of Selective Service have been urged to give the most serious consideration to the deferment of men who are employed in the felling and milling of timber."

Times Do Ghange

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For litercture or conaulting lewiceg on TECO

Tirnber Cornectorr get in touch wi&

One of the outgrowths of the manpower shortage in our region has been the increased employment of women in sawmills. Nowadays one.may find grandmothers, matrons and debs in many a sawmill running carriers, feeding machines, tying flooring, marking lumber and even working on the green chains. We have yet to hear of a Pauline Bunyan faller or bucker but we have had rumors of a female whistle punk.

One of the most welcome developments of l94Z so far as the lumber manufacturer was concerned was the concentration of government buying in the Central Procuring Agency of the U. S. Engineers. Previously the Engineers had bought lumber for the Army's contractors and for some Army branches, the Navy had purchased its own requirements, and the Maritime Commission and others had gone their respective ways. The result was confusion and needless competition. Late in the summer the Construction Division of the Corps of Engineers was intrusted with the purchase of all softwood lumber for most branches of the War and Navy Departments and for the Panama Canal,

Maritime Commission, War Shipping Administration, Coast and Geodetic Survey and Defense Plant Corporation. Concentration of lumber buying in one agency has already had a beneficial effect.

The biggest problem confronting the Northwest mills today is the log supply. Labor shortage in the woods has made it impossible to build up log inventories as usual during the summer months. Winter will temporarily close many logging operations and rainy weather will interfere with log hauling in some localities, so it is unlikely that mill production can be maintained at the present level in the months immediately ahead. Nevertheless the entire industry, workmen and management alike, will do their utmost to "Deliver the Woods." Day and night they will work with the words of Lieutenant Colonel F. G. Sherrill, Corps of Engineers, spoken at an industry gathering in Portland September 24, ringing in their ears:

"Remember always, that we are engaged in a war on the outcome of which our existence as a sovereign nation depends. Put up with annoyances, misdirbcted efforts and maladministration. Remember always, that the lumber you are producing is to be used to shelter some mother's son. Remember always, that it is to be used to build and repair ships to'transport or convoy him to the field of battle. Remember always, that it is to be used to provide hospital facilities in order that he may survive the wounds that will be inflicted upon him. Remember always, that it is to be used to build munitions plants to give him the tools to defend himself, to save his life, to win the war, and to save the nation."