The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ABE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1928. EMPIRE FORESTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ABE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1928. EMPIRE FORESTRY.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, ■ And the good that we can do. .

A conference on the forestry possibilities of the Empire has recently been held at Canberra, and some sixty delegates who have been examining into the timber potentialities of Australia will arrive in this country next week. ,-They will be able to devote only four days to , the South-Island, but they will give at least a week to the plantations and natural forests of the North. Their visit will be but a hurried one, but it should enable them to get some definite idea of the capacity of this country as a timber producer' and a possible source of supply to the Empire at large.

Following on the Empire Forestry Conference held in Canada in 1923, tho forest authorities throughout tho Empire were requested to compile estimates of the total forest resources of their various countries and to specify particularly the areas containing timber already marketable or capable of being made available within ten years' time. No doubt the report of the Canberra Conference when it is issued will include this information. But these estimates are not at all likely to affect the view of the world's timber prospects held by forestry experts in every important country. The recently published report of the Imperial Economic Committee on Timber emphasises the general decline in the supply of softwoods; and though lumberers and timber merchants generally refuse to admit the facts, those concerned with the management and organisation of forests are gravely apprehensive of the rapidly approaching' timber famine and its industrial and economic consequences.

The position of Britain in regard to the use of timber and its products is"of special interest to the Empire and the oversea Dominions. In 1927 Britain imported timber and wood pulp to the value of £67,000,000. Of all the timber consumed in Britain only 5 per cent is "homegrown," and of the imported timb;:;' 95 per cent of the softwoods and 70 per cent of the hardwoods were drawn from foreign sources. More particularly in view of the tremendous inroads made in recent years upon the world's timber stock, the rise in the prices of the most valuable timbers, and the certainty that the supply cannot possibly be brought up to the level of the demand for a long time to come, it is strange that those portions of the Empire which, like pur own country, are specially adapted for the rapid production of timber, have not long since endeavoured to avail themselves of the opportunity to supply the immensely valuable British market.

Though the Empire as a whole is feeling the operation of the law of diminishing return in respect to timber, it is well to remember that the supply of hardwoods still available, for the most part in Britain's tropical possessions, is probably the largest and most valuable'in the world. With proper management and economical usage the Empire's stock of hardwoods could supply all our needs for a long time to come. In the case of softwoods the demand is keener, and the inroads upon the existing sources of supply have been more exhausting. But many of the Dominions are particularly fortunate in possessing fhe soil and climate best fitted to promote the rapid growth of tiinbor trees, and among these highly favoured countries Now Zealand, and in a lesser degree Australia, stand pre-eminent. Our visitors will find ample proof oi the extraordinary rapidity with which exotics can be grown here. "'• ,-,