Page Eight = ®.... B.C. LUMBER ce - October 17, 1944 Continued from Page 5 Postwar Planning Essential In B. C. Lumbering Industry a special program of ‘fifty thou- sand to one hundred thousand units in the first postwar year, and of seven hundred thousand in the first 10 years.” This report of a government committee presents what it terms “a minimum housing program” for Canada during the years immediately following the war; the provision of housing being regarded as a strategic ele- ment in a full employment policy, and as a basic factor in the national standard of living. We must challenge these prob- lems in the same way in which ‘our armed forces at the fighting fronts challenge the enemy to- day. It will require a bold na- tional program, statesman-like Jeadership and the full coopera- tion of labor, management and government to develop policies based squarely upon the needs of the Canadian people and the experiences of the war, carried through in the spirit of crusades. - In addition to filling urgent re- Quirements of the Canadian peo- ple-and the almost unlimited de- mands of the devastated areas, the people of British Columbia must concern themselyes with the careful conservation of rap- idly diminishing lumber re- sources. Forest products account for 48 per cent of British Colum- hia’s trade and 40 cents of every dollar of primary products. The lumbering industry provides a payroll of 40,000 employees: and yet today the end of. accessible forests is already in sight, ac- cording to ‘government state- ment, is 5 The chief forester of British Columbia recently estimated be- fore the Sloan Commission that approximately ~one-third of our forest lands are in young pro- ductive timber, one-third in ma- ture timber and one-third de- nuded, He also estimated that about one-half of the sound wood cut in the forests is left on the ground. On the average, only 80 percent of what later goes into the mill is used and some mills, he stated, had a waste of up to 40 percent. This means that for every foot of lumber produced, we use two and a half feet of tree, Obviously, British Columbia’s interests call for immediate measures to put an end to such wasteful and destructive meth- ods of production. Past policies of “cut out and get out” must be eliminated, “Farming” of forest jands must be substituted for “mining” of forest lands, The eppropriation of sufficient funds for seeding and planting of de- nuded forest areas must be guaranteed so that as fast as possible, adequate reforestation ean be provided to the thousands of acres of barren, cut over, burnt out land. Today the forestry department estimates British Columbia is cutting one-third more timber than it is growing. If there is to be any future for our great lumber industry, there must be a vast expansion of our forest planning and conservation pro- grams. Enactment of legislation is also required to enable the pro- ;vVincial department of lands and agriculture to enter into. coop- Pictured above is the modern $15,000 cafeteria of Canadian White Pine sawmill operated by MacMillan Industries Ltd. course meals are served for “employees only” at a cost o year by the IWA and is now under union contract with | which is a marked contrast to the facilities, or rather complete lack of facilitie: erative agreements with private forest owners to pool govern- ment and private forest resources in general for sustained yield operations under provisions which will give full protection to the public interests. Our forests must become models of practical and scien- tific management and the ques- tion of finding the practical means of getting greater or more intensified utilization of forest products with the devel- opment of our manufacturing Processes must be undertaken. A recent graph prepared by the Bureau of-Economics and Statis- ties, indicates the number of man days of direct employment provided in manufacturing one thousand fb.m. of standing tim- ber into the various exportable forest products. The illustration indicates the importance of this question. The two extremes it depicts are interesting, The export of logs provides only one man-day of employment in each thousand , fbm. of timber cut in the ‘woods. On the other hand the export of cabinet work provides 19 man days of employment for the same athount of forest de- pletion. The difference between two and four man days per f.b.m. for the export of rough, green lumber, and newsprint has a great deal of significance for B.C,, since both contribute large- ly to this province’s wood prod- - ucts, Before the war, British Colum- bia exported a considerable num- ber of cedar logs and “Jap Squares” to Japan for remanu- facture. The Japanese went much fur- ther in the remanufacture of British Columbia’s forest re- sources. They saved the saw- dust from cuttings off the “Jap squares,” mixed it with ground bark from cedar logs, added pu- mice and sent the product back to B.C. as hand cleanser. The practicability of such a degree of secondary production may be questioned here, but nevertheless it is an interesting illustration. ‘British Columbia burns and blasts its tree stumps. In the Scandinavian countries they dis- till lubricating oils from their stumps. From its forests Swe- den is not only getting wood tars which its scientists convert into lubricants, but it is getting producer gas to drive 25 per cent of its motors; fuel for its blast furnaces and heavy indus- tries, wood alcohol enough to drive ambulances, fire engines and police cars, soap and many other substitutes; including, yes, even fodder for the horse and cow. The University of Idaho has been carrying out extensive ex- periments in plastie manufac- tures to recover some of the 76 percent waste of our forest prod- ucts. A new plastic which has been developed from forest prod- uct waste has a tensile strength of nine ‘thousand pounds per square inch. It is resistant to moisture and action of acids. Right here in B, Doctor Leslie L. Schaeffer in the lab- oratory of the Pacific Veneer Company at New Westminster, has succeeded in impregnating birch wood with a resin com- pound so successfully that B. soft woods are now being con- verted to hard woods. Western |WA-CIO Local 1-217. white birch veneers impregnat- ed with phenol formaldehyde resinoid and submitted to heat under high pressure has devel- oped a wood plastic alloy’ with greatly increased strength and high dimensional stability. In the United States, plastics are being developed as smooth and hard as glass, as tough as mild steel, basis lighter than aluminum by the same process. Development of such an industry opens up Possibilities for the complete re- ~olutionizing of practically all equipment and devices and a progressive _ development for man comparable to that which came with the manufacture of ivon and steel products. The greatest field that can be opened up for our forests is that and on a weighty them for the use and happiness of man. Obviously we have the re. sources; -we have the facilities and we have the manpower, They must not be allowed to remain idle, There is no ques- tion that the decision of the majority of the Canadian people, those at the fighting fronts, as well as those who have con- tributed on the production front, is definitely for international co- operation. We must insist that the same effort that was used-to destroy during wartime is used to con- tsruct in peacetime—construct for a happier, better life; for social advancement of mankind; for se- curity and freedom from want and fear. : “Today a turning point has been of chemistry, for wood is chemi- cally rich in potentialities. Cellu- lose is now one of the world’s most important manufacturing raw materials, particularly in the textile field. Cotton is a com- petitor of wood, but the chemist is waging a stout battle for wood today. For example wood flour can be obtained for the manufacture of linoleum, dynamite, wall board and masonite. Then there is the possibility of utilizing pulp ‘mill waste, nearly 50 percent of the tree, which could be developed into pulp liquor. British Colum- bia can and should enter into every field of chemical wood and Plastic manufacture, which means that extensive research work similar to that being conducted by the Powell River Company Limited must be undertaken, and even extended. The potentialities of this great 40,000-man industry in B.C. must be realized as rapidly as possible. Our forest resources must be conserved as a perpetual source of raw material for our domestic needs and exports. We must formulate a well defined, coord- inated, praétical program for the development ‘of this, our greatest natural resource, in a way that will provide lasting benefits for several times our present population. ‘The major task facing us is the adoption and practice of wise measures, not only for the wel- fare of the forests, but also of the 40,000 lumber workers who log them, saw them and process at Vancouver. f from twenty to thirty five cents each. This is one of the: larger mills organized last Hot full- MacMillan Industries are justly proud of their new lunchroom, Ss, of over five years ago before unionism came to B.C. lumber. reached by mankind, and the deepest hopes of all democratic men are today within our reach. The Teheran Accord will do for peace and security what the infamous Munich Pact did for war and fascist appeasement. The People must recognize Teheran’s potentialities and see that it is carried to fruition. Our No. 1 problem, of course, is to see that we win this war, and that we win it as quickly and with as little loss as possible. That is why labor has and will continue to place so much em- phasis on the question of full and ‘continuous production. Without winning the war, we will never even have the chance of winning the peace. This issue must be put squarely before the Canadian without confusion. « Isolationism and defeatism mean only prepara- tion for another and worse ca- tastrophe. The entire prospect for full employment, for a world in which peace, security and freedom are assured to all peo- ple, depends upon our individual and collective interest in the ful- fillment of this program. For if We are not interested in our own welfare, how can we expect any- one else to be? > During this war, the lumber- jacks in the B.C. woods have turned our green timbers into “fighting forests” for the’ United Nations. After this war, with our brothers from the fighting fronts, we want, and expect, to partici- pate in the fullest possible ex- pansion of human Wellbeing. People .