Show LUMBER AND MINING during the past year or two the price of lumber and timbers used in the mining industry and in all lines of industry for that matter has advanced enormously in many classes of material this advance has amounted to to per cent or more in mining the effect has been to seriously hamper development of new non producing properties and to compel even the producing mines to curtail operations in ground where heavy timbering is necessary to the safety of men it is not the purpose here to ques tion the statements of lumbermen to the effect that it costs more to produce timbers and lumber products in commercial form than formally that is conceded but increased labor costs freight rates etc represents only a portion of the argument made in justification of prevailing high costs in addition it has been preached that timber preserves in this country were nearing the point of exhaustion and that in the near future it would not be possible to obtain lumber for commercial purposes at any price this sort of propaganda has evidently made it possible to boost prices and at the same time convince consumers that they were lucky to have their needs supplied at any cost in view of this situation or condition of trade the mining review goes a little out of its way to reproduce another line of propaganda emanating from the commerce monthly for may which is published by the national bank of commerce of new york the article prepared for newspaper consumption as a resume of the main magazine article first states that the timber supply of the world outside the tropics is being used mord more rapidly than it is being renewed by growth and then gives data on 4 the worlds supply and shows that the united states now is in shape to work up a big export trade in lumber the argument does not fit in very well with the arguments made by lumber producers particularly ticul arly those of the western portion of the united states that we must soon cease using lumber the article referred to is reproduced just as it came it is entitled lumber exporting possibilities read it |