THE TIMBER INDUSTRY

Hokitika Guardian, 22 January 1926, Page 1

THE TIMBER INDUSTRY

MENAC£D .BY IMPORTATIONS (Contributed.)

While New Zealand is turning its attention, very wisely, to the preservation and extension of its forest areas, it appears to be concerning itself very little with the progressive development of its timber industry. The State is busying itself with the growing of trees, hut it is not encouraging their conversion into a marketable commodity. The two industries should proceed hand in hand. So far from this being the case, the State, while securing every possible facility fer its own fotestry operations, is practically excluding sawmilling from the protection it extends to other national industries. For instance, the export duties on wheat and flour for the protection of the Canterbury growers are equal, approximately, to 20 per cent ad valorem ; the duty on fruit for the protection of orehardists of the Dominion is rather more than 25 per cent, and the duty on butter and cheese, for the protection of the dairymen, fully 25 per cent. Yet the whole of the protection accorded to the sawmillcrs in the way of import duties during 102-1. the latest year for which offirail figures arc available, was equal to only 2.00 per cent, the value of the timber imported being 01,013,800 and the amount of dutv collected £21,825. ' PRETENDED PROTECTION. In these circumstances it is little wonder that the volume of imported timber is rapidly increasing at the expense of the local sawmilling industry. The following figures shew the extent to which this has gone on during the last three years for which official returns are available:—

The progressive increase in the percentage of the duty to the value of the imports so far from affording a crumb of comfort to the local industry really indicates that a larger quantity, of timber which enters into direct competition with iho local product is being introduced into the country each year. Oak and cedar, hardwoods which at present are not being milled in New Zealand, are admitted duty free; hut Oregon pine, hemlock and spruce are subject to duties ranging from 2s to 4s per 10 super feet. The increase in the percentage of the duty to the value of the imports, therefore, means, not that the New Zealand sawmillcrs arc being assisted even to the trifling extent represented by the increased volume of duty, hut that they arc encountering more and more intense competition every year from imported timber subject to a merely nominal charge. FREIGHTS AND WAGES. It. has been urged that the New Zealand sawmillcrs arc sufficiently protected in their industry by the great- distances that .separate them from their foreign competitors. But this is an entirely illusive argument employed by people ignorant of the facts or anxious to mislead the public. The following figures shew how frillling are the differences in rates of freight on timber between oversea ports and New Zealand and between Now Zealand shipping and binding ports:—

100 super ft. Baltic ports to New Zealand 5s 3Jd Pacific ports to New Zealand 5s 9d (Jrcyniouth to Wellington ... 5s Od Ohakmie to Wellington 5s 9d It will he seen from tlioso figures the New Zealand sawmillers obtain no protection at all from the great distances that lie between them and their foreign rivals. They are placed at a very great disadvantage in the keen competition. however, by Ihe much higher wages They have Lo pay. Here are the figures reduced to English money:—t'niled States ... 11 id per hour. Canada Is 5d Sweden Is Od New Zealand 2s 3d .. ~ Surely if the New Zealand sawmillers are compelled to pay wages from 50 to 120 per cent higher than those paid by their rivals they should not he asked to compote against them without assistance in their own markets. There is no other industry in the Dominion in which Ihe total of the wages paid hoars such a high ratio to the value of its products as it docs in the timber indus try. The latest official figures provide this striking comparison:— Industry Employ- Wages Value of ees Products. Timber ... 9.435 £2,058,774 £3,182,999 Freezing . 7.36,1 1,335.281 9,012,027 Dairying . 1.321 868,006 15,234,620 These figures show that while the timber industry pays away in wages, approximately, 05 per cent of tbe value of its products, tlie freezing industry pays away only 15 tier cent and Hie dairying industry only 5 per cent. And yet this great wage earning industry receives no protection from Hie cheap labour and Lhe cutting shipping services of outside countries. SOME ANOMALIES.

Added to this grievous handicap, which is opposed to the professed policy of successive (lovernments, there are many anomalies in the Customs tarili. which press hardly upon the sawmillers. Take, for instance, the importation of Spruce. This timber usually reaches tills country in "shooks” in a manufactured state requiring only to Ik- nailed together to become butter boxes or fruit eases. Being dressed timber it is subject to a duty of 4s per 109 super feet, but this does not prevent it under-selling New Zealand white pine, which is admittedly the* hotter i,.[ the two for both dairy and orchard purposes and is given preference in Australia at a substantially higher price. Second rate pine is generally conceded to lie equal to spruce and if its use were encouraged the sawmillers would employ still more men and capital would be conserved within lhe Dominion. Perhaps the most grotesque of all these anomalies is a Customs regulation which allows a drawback of dutv paid on spruce butter boxes when thev are re-exported. This concession practically admits the timber to New Zealand free of duty and so amounts to a bonus to the foreign compel iior. But there are other anomalies that would Iso ludicrous were they not so injurious to local industries. Manufactured door-steps come in as dtessed limber; wall boards are classified under the paper schedule and used for lining houses, and the duty on oneinch'timber may be lowered from 2s per 100 feet super to Is or even to 6d b T reducing its thickness to half inch or quarter inch. TV ith the exception of oak, jarrah and cedar, there is not the slightest need to import timber to New Zealand and the tariff should be so revised that sawmilling could maintain its proper place among the industries of the country and become of increasing advantage to the State and to the whole community.

Per cent of duty Your. Value. Duty to value. £ £ 1922 1)50,682 0,020 1.64 1029 638.020 11.3S2 1.78 1924 1,013,829 21.815 2.78