The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1919-03-14

dustrial conditions have counted for
more than any other factor in in
fiuencing activity and prices of spec
ulative securities since the turn of the
year.
Building Season Advanced.
Further declines in basic materials.
such as iron and copper, and in con-
struction materials such as brick. ce-
ment and lumber, have made their ap-
pearance, and coincidentlv there is an
increasing interest in building plans
throughout the country With the
building season advanced by favorable
weather, builders have been rushing
their plans for building projects SO as
to anticipate the high rents and a CON
tinuation of the favorable leasing sea-
son in the autumn. The demand for
the stabilizing of building material has
been met, and it is expected that the
labor situation will be cleared I'D in
comparatively short time.
With the creasing competition for
jobs among the building artisans APP
parent in almost every trade, and the
disposition of private contractors to
get their projects going before the
state and nation come into the market
tor large quantities of materials, there
BY benefiting from the present base
prices, the building season is approx
imately per cent under way as of
March l, taking 1916 as comparison,
and if the labor difficulties can be
smoothed out by March Is, when the
building season formally opens, mar
ket 20 per cent of normal will be I'M
der way with maximum limited only
by the ability of the building material
manufacturer to meet the demand
Worlds Need of Production.
Leaders of the giant industrial cor
porations of the country are becoming
Increasingly optimistic over the out
lock for business, and arc almost una
nimous in their predictions for "fair
weather" in the business world from
this time forward. In an interview
last week the head of the Standard
Oil Co.. of New Jersey stated that the
big incentive to increased production
was the shortage of commodities of
every character in practically every
part of the civilized world. The enor-
nous production of goods among the
warning nations during the past four
Years has gone into immediate con-
sumption, and has been of a destruc-
tive instead of a constructive nature
The usual surplus is therefore missing,
and in its place an embarrassing
scarcity
New construction and requirements
in the industrial plants of the whole
world have fallen far behind normal
requirements, and taking up this slack,
by doing the things which were neg
lected during the war, will call for the
services of every man. Even during
the present seasonal period of idle
ness common to many outside trades,
and to unskilled labor. there are not
the number of unemployed workers
now which have been in evidence in
the larger centers of the United States
during the late months of winter in
the periods of commercial depression
before the war began.
There are able leaders of great in
dustrial enterprises who are inclined
to view the commercial future with
apprehension because of the enormous
destruction of wealth and the tre-
mendous National obligations which
have been piled up by reason of the
war, but too many people embraced
the theary that because times were
good in war they will necessarily be
bad in peace. They regarded the war
period as a special boom time.
The situation which confronts US is
an actual shortage Of goods and sur
prisingly sound mercantile credit posi-
ton. There Is a surplus of some few
war commodities. the manufacture Of
which was necessarily maintained at
the pcak-load until peace was abso-
lutcly assured. The man who was
amking war materials is now out Of
employment. but generally the world
lis short of goods. and all forms of