When Mr. Reibel gets started he does good operations.

We published, on December 4, a note in which the General Confederation of Cooperatives for the Reconstruction of Devastated Regions, chaired by Mr. de Lubersac, complained that the government had not delivered the wood that had been promised to it from the fellings. executed in the state forests of the Rhineland.

The Ministry of Liberated Regions was undoubtedly moved by this claim because it immediately took measures to provide the wood requested. And here is the beautiful commercial operation carried out by his department

For quite some time he had 25,000 cubic meters of high-quality fir logs in the Palatinate. Purchase offers had been made to him on the basis of 130 francs per cubic meter, which would have caused him to collect a net sum of 3,250,000 francs, because all the costs of slaughter, transport, etc., were at the responsibility of buyers.

Instead of proceeding in this way, the special office of the ministry, which has its headquarters on rue de La Trémoille, decided with the sawmill consortia:

1° That he would have the slaughter carried out;

2° That he would be responsible for transporting from the woods to the railway tracks;

3° That it would ensure transport on the railways of the Franco-Belgian railway and the Alsatian railways;

4° That he would bear the German exit costs;

5° That he would pay French customs duties;

6° That he would give the wood to be cut to several sawmills in Alsace-Lorraine and pay for the processing.

If we add up the costs that these various operations will require, we see that the cubic meter of log wood will cost the State 310 francs and the cubic meter of cut wood 425 francs. However, the price of sawn timber was, a few weeks ago, around 250 francs per cubic meter.

At what price will we have to sell it to the Cooperatives so as not to lose? One wonders.

The sawyers themselves, during the discussions they had with Mr. Naud, delegate of the ministry, drew the attention of this official to the tremendous price at which the wood would fetch. He simply replied:

They will, in fact, come at a very high price.

In summary, instead of immediately collecting more than three million, as it would have done by selling the standing timber, the State will be obliged to pay a large sum to pay the costs for which it assumes responsibility and it will not might not get his money back.