TIMBER SLACKNESS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1927, Page 4

TIMBER SLACKNESS

(Auckland Star). That tinea large Auckland sawmills should have decided to reduce working hours should surprise no one. The difficulties of the timber industry have long been patent. Jt is suffering from the law of diminishing returns and competition from more favoured councries. It is absurd to suppose that if can be as prosperous in every rcsp? to-day as when timber was fnore plentiful and more accessible. There is a demand for a higher tariff, but that i open to the serious objection that it would raise the cost of living to everybody. One method of easing the pressure on the industry is to relax the by-laws that govern the use of various grades of timber, so that more of the non-heart kinds can be consumed. Big plants in suitable positions should lie established for treatment of lower grade timbers. There has been a great deal of talk about such relax? tion, but nothing seems to have been clone. The industry, the local bodies, and the Government are the three parties concerned, and it is time, a definite lead was given in the direction of an overhaul of existing regulations. Though there is an obligation on

industry to be united and enterin'' ing on this subject, tlic lead should come from the Government. It alone is in a position to bring the other two parties together. The industry has readied a point of decline at which Government intervention is operative.