The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-03-21
Demands For, And
 Obstacles to Building

Seventy-fOur cities have returned to the U. s. Department of Labor quesuonnaires on building needs and obstacles in getting building under way. Ftfty-seven- Of these cities show a pressing demand for building and most of these emphasize the shortage of dwellings and apartment houses.
 Typical of the representations in this particular are tic following: Portland, Maine, reports shortage in dwelling and tenement houses; Haverhin Lawrence and Salem, Mass, report a demand for dwellings and tenements; Albany, N. Y.. needs flats Manhattan needs office dwell ing and storage buildings; Rochester needs dwellings and mercantile buildings; Atlantic City, East Orange and Elizabeth, x. J., are short in dwellings and apartments and almost all the towns in Pennsylvania report ing show deficiency in residences. Ohio, Indiana and Illinois show 2 shortage in dwellings with an ocCa- sional report on demands for schools and factories, and the major per centage of shortage in Colorado, Utah, Washington and California is in dwellings. In the south and south west there is q demand for business building this being especially noticea- ble in Texas and Louisiana.
 Scranton and Wlkes-Barre, Pa, Newark, Ohio, Wheeling, w, Va, Bloomington and Danviue. H., report no demand for buildings indicating present facilities are adequate to cur rent needs.
 Tacoma, Washington, was the only city reporting no delay on account of wages, material prices, interest rates and available capital. Taco mas obstacle was indictment weather and subsequent reports from the state of Washington indicate preparations for unusual building activity for the spring season.
 The questionnaires, which were sent out by the Division of Public Works and Construction Developments of the U. s. Department of Labor, were cal culated to verify the results of other
 iuvestlgations into the building short age of the country and to develop what, if any, obstacles were being en- countered by building interests. Spec fife information was asked on the in fIuence of wages, material prices, in terest rates and available investm ent | capital Several cities reported that 1t was none of these which was de- laying building but rather the un- 1 certainty of the future labor and ma terial market \ majority of the | cities assert that high wages are a factor in holding back building; there is almost unanimous conCurranCe in the opinion that high prices of ma tnrials are determined obstacles. There is not much complaint about interest rates but II cities report builders are having difficulty in ob- taiuiug capital to finance projects.
 This latter obstacle appears not to to be a sectional matter but rather one growing out Of local conditions ! in widely separated territory. Cam 1 bridge Mass; New Haven, Conn; Al ! bany. N. Y; Philadelphia. Pa; Terre 1 Haute. Ind: Wheeling, w. Va; Au- 1 rora. Ill.,, are among the cities re- | porting difficulty in borrowing capital 1 for building work.
 | Wherever building industry organ | izations have gone into the subject, | the conclusion has prevailed that no ! decrease ir labor wages may be ex-
 pected for some time to COme-not i until the general price level on living
 necessities drops. The investigations i of the economists in the Department
 of Labor supported by no less an 1 authority than Prof Irving Fisher,
 of Yale University, assert no marked ! reduction may be expected in build
 ing material prices. Prof. Fisher as
 serts we are on a new and higher
 price level from which. in the main,
 we shall not recede. ''We are on a
 permanently higher price level,' says Prof Fisher, and the sooner the . business men of the country take this
 view and adjust themselves to it, the | sooner will they save themselves and
 the nation from the misfortune which
 will come. if we persist in our pres
 ent false hope"
 After setting out the circumstances and developments on which this con- l clusion is based, Prof. Fisher con- ! cIudes his study of the situation with . this: Business men should face the
 facts. To talk reverently of 1913-1 4 . prices is to speak 9 dead language to-
 day. The buyers Of the country since the armistice, have made
 an unexampled attack upon prices
 through their waiting attitude
 and yet price recesslUns have been in
 significant. The reason is that we are on a new high price level, which
 will be found a stubborn reality ] Business men are going to find out
 that the clever man is not the man { who waits. but the one who finds
 out the new price facts, and acts ac-
 cordingly."