lnsular's Plant Facilities in Philippines Restored

Production of tropical hardwoods on Negros Island irr the Philippines-Insular Lumber Company's mill at Fabrica, company tor,r'n of 20,000 on the island-had come to a virtual halt rvhen American troops liberated the island after four years of Japanese occupation. Mill facilities had lleen completely destroyed. The town had already suffered considerable damage from U. S. bombers while the nrill rvas occupied by the Japanese.

A $2,500,000 rehabilitation program initiated in 1946 has enabled fnsular to equal prewar production. $300,000 was expended on the planing mill alone. Climax of the planing rnill restoration rvas the installation of a modern StetsonIioss planer, an all electric, eight-ton planer and matcher capable of lvorking 80,000 board feet of lumber per eighthour shift.

The company also improved the performance of Sorn€ trf its older moulders. A Mattison moulder, for example, has had its capacity increased 300 per cent by replacing worn bearings, renerving arbors and installing' new end bells on the motors.

Insular is again shipping kiln-dried finished Philippine nrahogany hardrn'oods to the United States in quantity.

The Insular Lumber Company of Philadelphia, Pa., rvas cstablished in 1904; Henry S. Thompson is president. Henry C. Pope, rvho distinguished himself during the war as a leader at internment camps at Bacolot and Los Banos, is resident manager in the Philippines. The majority of Insular personnel was interned along with Pope and other American and European prisoners of the Japanese. John W. Davev, planing mill superintendent, died during internment. In his place, the company named William J. Hoffrneister, veteran of 35 years in Pacific Northwest millrvork operations.

Insular products in the United States are sold by the Insular Lumber Sales Corporation through the follou'ing distributors: Mahogany Importing Company, Los Angeles; White Brothers, Robert Dollar Company and Davis Harclwood Company, allin San Francisco; Matthews Hardu'oods, Inc., Seattle; Frank Paxton Company, Kansas Citr' : Cotton-Hanlon, Inc., Cayuta, N. Y.; Black & Yates, Brooklyn; Fessenden Hall, Philadelphia; and Du Bell Lumber Co., Camden, N. J. The Canadian outlet is Robert Bury & Co., Ltd., Toronto.