The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-07-03

the lethargy in building ere long will be replaced by activity. Material costs are coming down and while they may not have reached bottom, they are now reported far below peak. Labor is deflating and signs are multiplying that the deadlock in many great centers is wearing itself to slow finish, and back of both these importan factors is the ever growing need of homes to keep pace with the country's growth in popula- ton.
 Labor department officials have as many agents in the storm centers of building trade troubles as the de- partment's somewhat scanty appro- priation will permit. and these agents have reported back within the past week that the outlook Is brighter for resumption of business on a gradually increasing scale than 1t mas been at any time this year.
 Millions for Building
 Their reports are checked by re- ports to the federal reserve board, which show that building permits were taken out during May for more than $250,000, 900 in new construc ton throughout the nation. As d whole this compares favorably with April Were the rate maintained it would remain a S3, 900. .0o0-a-year building programme To catch up with normal the United States needs somewhere between $10.OOo. OO0 900 and s20.000,- - 00O,O0O of new buildings.
 When building construction revives general prosperity will revive. Ac- cording to the chamber the construc- n gfv-x, ment of $77000, 900. .000 or 27 per cent of our nations wealth; 90 per cent of all iron ore copper, zinc and lead mined are used In construction; sl,O0O' 000,000 is paid annually in nor nal times to @ million workers en- gagged directly, and eleven million men derive their living directly or Indirectly from the industry.
 Twenty five per cent of all rail- way freight Is construction materials.
 For those and other equally potent reasons labor department officials regard building cous;ruct:cn as the key log in the business jam. Release 1t, they believe, and immediately the large number of dependent and allied Industries will move with it; hun dreds of thousands of men now idle will be given work; millions now liv- ing in cramped and often insanltary quarters will be afforded relief; the railroads will greatly increase their revenues and .hns De ena.IOd to place orders in other lines now more pr less dormant and the little leaven will leaven the whole.
 Large Centers
 Chicago. Philadelphia, Cleveland. Pittsburg. New England suburban New York, New Jersey. Kansas City these and many other larger centers of population have been wrackef by pains in the building industry. Some of these centers have solved their problem at least tenn oorarily, and men are back at work; others still are dislocatei. It Is in the latter class that the chief symp- toms of revival are shown. Inevitably, the department believes, there is coming a day soon when both sides will get together and work.
 It now costs. according to au in the department of com nerce, about 90 per cent more to put up a home than it cost in pre- war days. In other words, modest little home that would have cost 5000 to erect in pre-war times, now costs about s9,5oo. The materials, this authority claims. are about so per cent higher than they were and the labor 100 per cent. In figuring he labor cost lowered efficiency Is .aken into considerationfi for wages Ire not double the pre-war figures.
 But in 1920, the same $5.000 pre-war home would have cost more than s12,000. A total of s2.500 has been slipped from the peak. Material men say their products are selling now 1t virtually no profit and labor ,laims that it has gone further back oward normal than material costs.
 John H. Donlin, president of the trades department of the American Federation of Labor has his to say:
 Now is the time to build. It can ,e done more expediently and cheap 1T now than in the recent past or he near future"