THE TIMBER TRADE

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1928, Page 3

THE TIMBER TRADE

POSITION IN WESTLAND. According to Air F. L. Turley, secretary of the AVcstland Timber Workers’ Union, the position of the timber industry in the AVest Coast of the South Island is very bad indeed. Mr Turley stated, in an interview, that out of about 87 sawmills on the AVest Coast there were 65 working and 2z closed down. Most of those cutting were working short-handed and only part-time. The position was so .serious that he anticipated, in addition to the men already thrown out ol employment since the commencement of tho slump over two years ago, another four hundred sawmill employees will be out of work if trade does not improve next month. I lie timber trade was one of the first industries to feel the effects of the general depression through which the Dominion lias been passing in tho past two or three years.

Another factor which seriously affected the industry was the embargo placed on the exportations of rimu to Australia some eight years ago. The embargo had the efiect of causing Australian timber merchants to find some substitute for riutn, with a result that American timbers were imported in large quantities, cutting out, the New Zealand trade. The lifting of the embargo recently, he said, was not going to help the New Zolaand trade for a considerable time as the rimu market had been lost and would take some time to regain.