Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 1920. FORESTRY PRODUCTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 April 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 1920. FORESTRY PRODUCTS.

New Zealand in common with all countries, is suffering from a shortage of newspaper. Yet here as in oj/hpr forestry clad regions there is a vast store .of material for the manufacture of wood pulp, whpuce paper c ap be made. Government and ptjyajte enterprise have dabbled with the proposal to establish paper-making mills._ In years gone hv flip Government of the late Mr Seddon

sent Hoppe samples of Westland timber from which very goo 4 newspaper was manufactured. Lafer a private syndicate took up a great tract of birch country in the Taipo district with the object of floating a company for the manufacture of paper, '(lie intervening of the war appears to have put'the Syndicate out of action, and the project lie£ dormant. That there is great wealth in our forests at present unexploited is evidenced by the experience of olden countries which have developed their timber resources almost* as ft fine art. Probably when the proposed Progress League gets under way it will take up the question of paper-making. There is a certain market for every ream of which can be turned out, and ■likoly £o fly? seeing that the markets of the wprld lire mgv so- depleted. In Canterbury there aye win/ lmvg pr had an interest in the -Tai-

p« project ajbow referred to, and if Government* would not hp pjypaffid to take the matter up ag a linfiopaf m ; dustry, doubtless private enterprise would avail itself pf the opening and undertake the prosecution of the undertaking. Finland is a . country which ipighf bg quoted as an example for New

I Zealand to eniiilafc in the matter referI red to. It is in its foresfs ilpat Finland finds its greatest wealth. Biped thy ;plvout of tho sawmill in the middle of the nineteenth century forestry products, says an English commercial paper, have constituted tile country’s principal exports. Prior to the war these consisted of great quantities of lumber, pitprops, chemical pulp and paper, and inasmuch as over half of the country' is covered with forest, tliesp industries give promise of still greater export development, /the year 1918 began with enormous stocks of timber, u ood pulp and chemical pi up op hand, but sales were effected under strict Government supervision, mid in 1919 shipments were made to the United States. The suspension of exportation on account of the All/ed blockade in the Baltic during the latter part of 1918 prevented s satisfactory outlet for tho accumulated stocks, while the revolution which broke out early ip tire year brought industrial activity to a standstill for nearly six months. During the summer of 1918 sales of woodpulp wore possible only to Germany, but markets were available later in the adjacent

1 European countries an<l Turkey. As to tic pros-pecis of tlie wood pulp industry now thatwood pulp is the principal ingredient in the manufacture of printpaper everything points to a great demand in this and prosperous times are doubtless in store for the pulp mills of .Scandinavia, and Finland, tho countries which before all others are to provide Europe with this increasingly necessary article. The paper industry is also well established in Finland, and the value of the chemical-pulp mills is shown bv the recovery of by-products such a,s wood alcohol, turpentine, resin and ammonium sulphate. The countries to which tins paper-industry products are exported are Russia, Germany the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Sweden, Denmark and Spain; while of late years the United Kingdom, has been a- particularly important market for manufacture of bobbins, and at the present time there are fourteen bobbin factories in Finlind all with English machinery. The pro- 1 duct is shipped mostly to England. Tn 1918. however flic plants were not work- 1 ing, and no bobbins were exported. So far as this country is concerned. Die question mentioned seems to call for the fullest investigation and tile subject cannot be taken up too soon in the interests of the country as a whole.