Canadian Buzz Saw

Canada's war effort last week showed belated signs of shifting into high gear. Into the driver's seat of the important Merchant Shipbuilding and Shipping Program moved Harvey Reginald MacMillan, a harddriving, hardheaded lumberman who believes in getting things done. No business-as-usual fuddyduddy, MacMillan is a reminder that Canada also produced Lord Beaverbrook. Says he: "This war demonstrates that no one owns his property, that one's job and standard of living are all at the service of the State. . . . War is the greatest creator of social revolution. Woe to ... the greedy reactionaries."

H. R. MacMillan had been with the Government before. Last year, first as $1-a-year timber expert, then as head of the Wartime Requirements Board, he cut through red tape like a buzz saw through a log. He studied Canada's lagging war effort, submitted a vast reorganization plan to Clarence D. Howe, Minister of Munitions and Supply. But his methods were too direct; before his plan went through, he was eased out. Minister Howe said Mac Millan had been "sabotaged" by jealous politicians, that whenever the Government decided to give him a freer hand, Lumberman MacMillan would come back. Last week, when he did, most agreed that this time the buzz saw would have his own way.

Jut-jawed, bushy-browed, erudite Tycoon MacMillan was born near Toronto, studied forestry at Yale. In 1912 he went to British Columbia, got interested in timber's export possibilities, went into business for himself. Soon his ships were carrying so much of Canada's lumber exports that the sawmill owners began buying ships too. So MacMillan bought (from John D. Rockefeller Jr.) one billion feet of standing timber and a sawmill for $6,627,000.

For some years Lumberman MacMillan has been the world's No. 1 exporter of lumber. But, at 55, success has not smoothed his edge. To a muddleheaded Government clerk who telephoned him to ask what should be done with a carload of shingles, he replied: "Print the Lord's Prayer on every one of them." He answers his own telephone with a gruff "MacMillan speaking." Once at a formal dinner there was a hushed lull while the diners waited for someone to say grace. The silence was broken by his boom: "MacMillan speaking."

The Ottawa Agreements of 1932 giving preferential tariff treatment (to Dominion exporters) gave H. R. MacMillan Export Co. a big boost. So naturally Lumberman MacMillan is as loyal to the Empire as to Canada. As the head of Canada's shipbuilding program, he may well have one of the Empire's most important posts.

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