VANISHING FORESTS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 136, 4 March 1919, Page 10

VANISHING FORESTS

PIiOIIIIUTION OP EXPORT SUGGESTED. Mr. S. J. Harbutt, of Auckland, at the Industrial Corporation's Conference read a paper by Mr. S. J. Clarke ou "Commercial Timbers." The paper urged Unit steps should be taken to extend the supplies of timber in the, Dominion, and that public opinion should 1)0 influenced in favour of afforestation. It was unwise to depend on supplies from overseas. Individual effort could be encouraged, but tun adequate supply of timbr could bo assured by only State control. For construction purposes New Zealand timbers could ho found in payable quantities. Those fit for outside and inside work could be counted on tho fingers of one hand, and these were vanishing at a ifate that should causo serious alarm. Au equal number of exotics wero growing in this country that gave much t better promise than tho natives of rapidity of growth, volume of returns, lightness, and ease in working, with consequent cheapness of working and transit, strength and durability. Although the natural forests should bo preserved as far as possible, the main hope was in a properly equipped and well managed system of cultivated forests. New Zealand must manage her own timber business in a way suited to her own conditions of life and trade. Mr. Stevenson, Dunedin, said that it was time New Zealand put her house in order as far as timber was concerned. The export of all timber should be. stopped, and experiments should be made to show if the soft timbers might be used for pulp. Extensive afforestation should be. taken in hand at once. Mr. H. Mainland, Wellington, said that a commission was supplying information on the subject to the Board of Trade. Tho basis of tho remedy was to stop export. The supply would never be conserved as long as vessels wero allowed to take quantities of timber to Australia. Timber that conkl be bought a few years ago lur 24a. now cost £2 10s.

Mr. J. Black, Christchurch, said that an export duty might be imposed to help locai industries. He would not favour absolute prohibition of export.

Mr, Harbutt said that a contract I had "been signed for the supply of .£5,000,000 worth of timber from the Weil. Coast to Australia. ' The present policy would lead to the most disastrous famine Xew Zealand ever had experienced. Every organisation in the Do--' minion should support the Government , in a scheme of afforestation, but it must 1m on commercial lines. In Otago there were millions of acres that could be replanted. He wondered if the country's gnins from tens of thousands of cleared and grassed land in the Wairarapa was equivalent to the gain it would have had if the forest was left standing. The country was galloping to the bad at an alarming .rate. Messrs. Harbutt, Mainland, and Black wore appointed a committee to go into Hl2 question and-frame a remit for the conference to submit to the Government.