Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-01-26
BUILDING INDUSTRY x ECONOMIC
 RECONSTRUCTION
Construction Work Helps to Provide Employment for
 Returning Soldiers.
SCARCITY CREATES
 HIGH RENTS
New Division in Department of Labor Directs Investigation of Economic
 Reconstruction.

A new division has been created in the Department of Labor for the pur- pose of interesting the nation in pub llc works and private construction, Secretary Wilson announces that the new service will gather and distribute information that will enable private initiative to make the transition from war to a peace basis without serious interruption, due to lack of data on which business judgment must depend.
 A survey of business conditions will be made with a view to learning how labor and capital may be profitably employed during the critical period when factories are being made over for peace production and marwets are being canvassed for future outputs.
 The division which will carry on this work is now being organized by F. T. Miller, the publisher of con- struction periodicals, as section of the Department Information and Education Service, of which Roger w. Babson is chief. The new organization is called the Division of Public Works and Construction Development, and occupies the building at 16 Jackson Place.
 l The particular objective of the bur- eau's research will be to secure data for the use of the construction indus- try, but the material to be collected will be so varied that the information Will be of value to industry generally. The facts made available will be of help to any community or investor in determining whether it is advisable to undertake public or private building at present. When circumstances unfa- vorable to construction are discovered an attempt may be made to correct them but there will be no stimulation of economically unsound enterprise The findings of the bureau will be giv- en the widest publicity.
 The pivotal nature of the building industry is economic reconstruction and the general purpose of the work of this division are expressed in Sec retary Wilson's statement:
 Building construction will help to provide employment for returning soldiers and for workmen dismissed from war industries. One of the larg- est sources of prospective employment is the building trade and it's allied factory industries.
 l All CHS SetoS OI pIINdCc COISCIuCClOH, Il, a resumption of activity will also les sen the congestion of population, inn I prove conditions affecting the public health an dconvert inactive property into active property-which supplies the means that enable communities to support the functions ot governments.
 During the war the nation practically concentrated all it's ef- forts on the .productin of goods for immediate consumption-war mater ials, food, clothes. The failure to pro- duce the normal quota of goods TOT fu- ture consumption has made these scarce and high priced, and as they are essential to further production they affect the cost of production and consequently the cost of living. Chief among such goods are building and other real estate improvements, in- cluding public works, as roads bridges, etc. The scarcity of buildings, for example, creates high rents."
 The inquiry will be under the dir ection of business men of wide practi- cal experience who are serving with out pay. The actual investigation will be conducted by group of econo- mists and special agents supplied Dy the Department of Labor and other Governments departments or lent by universities. The field will include the cost and supply of building materials, the amount of labor available and it's cost, the values of land, prevailing rents the supply of capital, the am- ount of construction held up by the war and the demand for building in all parts of the country.
 Under the supervision of the econo- mics section, five, other sections will