The Darkness That Settled Over The Philippine Lumber Industry ls Lifting

The cloud of darkness that settled down over the great hardwood lumber industry in the Philippine Islands when the Japs struck more than three years ago, is beginning to lift. It is still impossible to make any detailed report of just what happened to the various mills, or list the condition of the majority of them at the present time. But we do possess some general and a little specific knowledge of what remains of that great industry that gave Philippine hardwoods in general and Philippine Mahogany in particular to the world before the war.

A letter written by J. Raymond Peck, president of the largest milling concern operating in the fslands, The Insular Lumber Company, gives the following information concerning their very modern and famous plant located on the Island of Negros. The main sawmill building, the power plant, machine shop, and storage sheds, were all destroyed by fire. Some reports say that place was bombed. Mr. Peck states that some machinery had survived the fire, including an S-foot band mill, a resaw, an edger and blower, and a turbine, and that when the Japs fled they left this equipment behind them, all well crated for shipment, evidently to Japan. With the exception of this saving, that great milling plant is gone, undoubtedly including the biggest battery of Moore Dry Kilns ever built outside the United States.

Harvey Pope, who was general rnanager for Insular in the Islands, was taken by the Japs and interned in the concentration camp at Los Banos. He is now in San Francisco, recuperating from that severe experiehce.

Another very large manufacturer of Philippine hardwoods is the Findlay, Millar Timber Company, of London, represented in the United States by Walter G. Scrim, of Los Angeles. Mr. Scrim makes the following' news report of that concern. They operated two mills in the Islands, a very large plant nearly as big as the Insular mi11, located at Kolambugan, on the islarid of Mindanao; and a smaller mill and remanufacturing plant right on the edge of the City of Manila. At Kolambugan their main mill had a daily capacity of 12O,000 feet of lumber, was backed up by a long line of railroad running into the timber. They also had a loading dock 220 feet long extending into deep water. When the Japs stru,ck the company officials applied the scorched earth policy to their own mill. They burned the mill to the ground, leaving practically no salvage. They burned 35 million feet of lumber. It is reported that this great lumber supply burned for weeks. They also burned the ocean loading dock, and several miles of their railroad from the mill out, so that the Japs could not use it. Their mill in Manila was not destroyed and is being operated at present by the American Army.

A. W. Robertson, general manager for the Findlay, Millar Timber Company, at l\fanila, was placed in the Santo Tomas concentration camp, where he remained until released by the American army. He is still in Manila, according to report, while Assistant General Manager Percy, who was also interned, recently passed through Los Angeles on his way back to England to report to the main office. He is young man, and survived the ordeal very well.

A. W. Austin, who was local manager of the mill at Kolambugan, took to the jungles when the Japs came, and with his wife remained safely hidden in the hills and jungles throughout the Jap occupation. He has now returned to the mill. Another of the men of this company was Colonel Carl Hedges, who was their superintendent of logging. He took to the jungles, joined the guerrilas, and became so famous for his activities that he was mentioned prominently in the recent Saturday Evening Post story, "The Philippines Never $urrendered,"

These are the only mills and lumber manufacturers from whom there are definite enough reports to permit printing with authority. The general report is that most of the smaller Philippine mills were not destroyed. In fact, there are no reports of any that were. As a rule, according to the information norv drifting back, the Japs cut up what logs they found, took all the lumber, and then stripped the plants of anything of value. It is reported on good authority that there are many small mills over there that could operate if they could get the things that were stripped

(Continued on Page 14) fleaven, I think, will no,t be great or strange, Nor shining with the glitter of all gold; There'll be no noise or cymbals or of harps, But only things we knew and loved of old. Reading our books-having tea at fiveSmiling across a table at dear faces, Horses and dogs-and lamplight on the snowHaving people in-and going places.

(Author unknown to me.)

#*{<

I read the above to one of the dearest and'finest elderly Christian ladies I ever knew. She read it over and over again. And she said: "That's the first description of heaven I ever read that thoroughly pleases me." It does me. I think most folks will feel the same way about it. Whoever wrote the little verse above translated my own thoughts into words far better than I have ever been able to do.

{<t* fn thes€ days when heartache and anguish have come to the legions of Americans whose boys wi:nt "over there" and who will not return again to bring light and happiness to their hearts, the thoughts in this little verse should bring some semblance of peace. "Wi[ we meet again" and how, and where?" has been the anguished cry of the human heart ever since the day when the first mother knelt at the side of her first-born and raised her heart in prayer to some unseen but hoped-for powxer of which she knew nothing.

"Quo Vadis"-whither do we go-is the normal question of the thinking human who considers the fundamentals of this thing we call living. War, which sends our strongest and best to early and untimely death, makes faith in the future a bulwark without which many would be utterly lost. Wouldn't the peaceful, homelike heaven described in the verse above, be a swell substitute for the utter confusion concerning the,"golden shore" that fills the average mind?

*{<*

White gleam the gulls across the darkling tide, On the green hills the red flowers seem to burn, Alas ! I see another spring has died; When rvill it come-the day of yo,ur return?

{< * * -Giles

The day of return has already arrived for many thousands of our American heroes in uniform: and countless hearts have been made glad. They will continue to come from now on. and each man who doffs his irniform and dons his civvies will add his bit to the return of that normal wav of life for which all men yearn.

I saw a letter to a friend of mine from his son who has seen and is still seeing much action in the deep Pacific. He said that their whole outfit has made up a money pool to be won by the company that comes closest to guessing the date of the final end of the war. And he said that his entire company has put up their cash and agreed on the opinion that the war with Japan will be over THE MIDDLE OF THIS COMING JULY. You may disagree, but there is an opinion from a lot of fighters who have been looking the Jap in the eye, and who feel that the little yellow devils won't be able to take what is being dished out to them very long.

x. :B *

The oration that Churchill delivered to the British people and to the world on Sunday, May 13th, in my opinion eclipsed all his previous efforts. Not in strength and in power; for there was lacking some of the vigor and punch of some of his earlier efforts since the war started. But it seemed to me that never before had he translated his admirable thoughts into such remarkable, such original words and phrases. He expresses himself entirely differently from any other speaker, living or dead. Truly he is a master of the fine art of talking English. The man outshines all previous British orators as the rays of the noonday sun outshine the paleness of the harvest moon. He writes his own speeches. What living man could even attempt to match such phraseology? ft is something to"know that we. lived with, and saw, and listened to the heroic words of one of the greatest men that ever figured in the tide of times. That history will place him at the highest pinnacle of fame among British statesmen of all time, I have not the slightest doubt. He lacks the weakening characteristics of personal vanity, egotism, arrogance, and selfish ambitions' what a man t

The highlights of the speech seemed to be when he said that the world organization for peace on which we are now working must "not become a shield for the strong, and a mockery for the weak." And when he paid his respects (?) to Mr. De Valera, of Ireland, the very air seemed to crackle when he said: "ff it had not been for the friendship of Northern Ireland, we should have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. De Valera, or perish from the earth. ffowever, with a restraint and poise to which, f say, history will find few parallels, His majesty's government never laid a violent hand on them, though at times it would have been quite easy and quite natural, but left the De Valera government to frolic with the Germans and later with the Japanese to their hearts content."

(Continued on Page 10)

(Continued from Page 8)

I'm not .much of a prophet, but something tells me that when more serious matters have been disposed of in the affairs of Britain, if Mr. Churchill retains the reins of government, the Irish gentleman who "frolicked with the Germans and the Japg" during Britain's darkest moments, may have cause to regret it. Why not? Yes, I have an idea that Churchill will "come to close quarters" some of these days with the bird who sent his condolences to Germany on the death of Hitler. And the "quarters" will probably be uncomfortably "close." I'll be disappointed in Churchill for the first time if he lets De Valera get away with it.

'***

There was something deeply tragic about the posthumous award of the Congressional Medal of Flonor to the late Billy Mitchell. IIe was the most infamously mistreated man in all American history. As a prophet he had Isaiah backed off the board. He predicted what happened at Pearl Harbor and also in the Philippines with such exactness that it makes you superstitious to read it. He predicted the place that the air corps would play in the next war as definitely as though the events had already taken place. The only criticism that could be made of his predictions and prophecies would be that he leaned.toward the conservative; the coming events that he pres4ged so punchfully have been even greater than he anticipated. He waS court-martialed and disgraced. The Bible says that "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Billy Mitchell knew some marvelous truths about aviation and its place in the world in general, and in war in particular. And he was scourged by a flock of short-sighted brass hats for uttering those truths. Truly "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country." But the shadow of Billy Mitchell will loom large in American history. Certainly it could be said of him what Sir Walter Scott wrote, that "coming events cast their shadows before."

It was twenty ,."r" "*Jrnl. Jily Mitchell was crucified for truth telling. The blindness of his judges and critics extended right up to Pearl Harbor. In fact, from all I can gather, everybody in the Pacific knew what was going to happen to Pearl Harbor and the Philippines except those that should have known. Ninety days before Pearl Harbor I saw a letter from an American soldier in Hawaii asking his folks to have some important changes made in his life insurance policies, and he urged in the letter that they hurry up and get it attended to "before the Japs strike." The little yellow men were marching, and they found exactly what Billy Mitchell, away back in 1925, said they would-Americaasleep.

Let it be said in our favor that many good men loved and trusted and believed in Billy Mitchell, and he was not left without strong arms about him when they court-martialed