The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1919-04-24
THE CROW'S-NEST


Just at this time when home build
ers ought to be planning to build, the
impression has gone out that build
ing material is likely to take a drop
in price in the near future. While
the timid ones are hesitating to build
residences, business men who are &C
customed to look ahead, are tearing
down their old buildings and are al
ready constructing new ones. Look
at the activity along u business
streets and take note Of the new pro-
iects that are under consideration,
This activity is going to stabilize the
prices of building material and he
who hesitates to build this year is go
ing to lose his opportunity. AT the
mass meeting a few evenings ago the
material men and contractors were
unanimously of the opinion that there
will not be much change in prices
and whatever decline there may be in
the cost of material this will be bal
anced by the price of labor so that
the cost of building may remain about
the same for several years TO come.
There is an item going the rounds
of the press that claims that the
cost of building materials has risen
over one hundred per cent during the
war period. The facts in the case are
that there has been a less per cent
of increase in building materials than
in any other commodity. One table
gives the increase as ~fifty-seven per
cent and that of food n~inety-nine per
greatest increase, that of one hun
bred and ffty-three per cent. One
can appreciate the latter when he
comes to buy a suit of clothes or a
pair of shoes for his women folks.
In the final analysis the price of
things must be measured in things
rather than gold prices. To be sure
the legal measure Is in gold but the
real measure is the e~xchangeable
value of the thing quoted as compared
with the other things that men de-
sire and produce. For the sake of
argument let US throw aside the mat
ter of thinking In dollars which is
really a commodity in itself and is
bought and sold like other things.
Measured by the correct standard of
ex~changeable values one will FORUM
ately discover that building materials
are cheaper than any other class of
co1l. ~, tho yaarlyat tAdnu Tor in
stance, let us take a thousand feet
of lumber which we may wish to use
for a certain purpose and do a little
bartering for it, Offering a product
that we can spare as we'll as not, and
see what we would have had to give
for that much lumber -four years ago
this month and what 1t would take to
get the same amount now. Four
years ago forty bushels of wheat for
a thousand feet of lumber, now twen-
.ty-one bushels. Then, a Ave hundred
pound hog, now a two hundred TWEEN
ty-one pound one. Then, about twen-
ty days common labor, o ten days.
A brick layer, if he wishes to make
oohlc repairs cu hlo hOuSN' Sau SCI a
thousand feet Of lumber for less than
five days work, and so on down the
line.
As one writer in a daily paper puts
building materials by thetaoird lltao
it, stop measuring the price OF
building materials by the safe, sane
and ~treacherously wobbly' gold dollar,
and measure them by the only just
and fair method, and that is their
exchange value with other things. Do
that and you will build"