TIMBER INDUSTRY

Hokitika Guardian, 21 June 1927, Page 4

TIMBER INDUSTRY

MOKE .MILLS MUST CLOSE. WELLINGTON, .June 17. •'The position of the timber trade has me absolutely beaten, and though tbo mills bare written asking for suggestions, I ran do nothing," said Mi A. Seed, secretary of tin* New /earn id SawmillerT Fe.ler ■t-on. fo-d >y when announcing the result of a visit just paid to West Coast sawmills. An inventory of orders had been taken for the month of May, and it bad been found that tbe total orders received represented approximately 17 per cent of wliat tbe mills bad turned out a few years ago. Spread over tbe whole of the mills on the Coast, these orders represented the equivalent of one working day per week per mill. The West- Coast holds about one-fifth of the total capital and labour of tbe Dominion’s timber industry, and Mr Seed states it is inevitable that more mills must, close. Tbe industry is tbits being blotted out. and tbe position iabsolutely desperate. ‘‘The depressed" state of the country has added to tbe trouble to tbe extent that even if imports were to cease to-morrow, I doubt whether the position would be improved to any marked degree," he said. No early relief is expected from following the Hon A. D. Al'Leod s suggestion that millers should classify

asaired of g fling the class they required and of obtaining dry timber, in which event tbe Mmister offered to give an undertaking that tongued and grooved rough lining would bo used in houses on which government money was expended in place of foreign t imhers. Mr Seed-states that this classification would he a lengthy matter, and tinwork lias not begun, also local author!, ties have shown no disposition to relax their building regulations to permit tbe wider use of "ordinary building" timbers. Government lending departments have always refused to advance money on bouses in which "0.b." liiujliers have been used externally, and tbe Sawmillers’ Federation is now negotiating for relaxation of these restrictions,