WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 24 October 1929, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS

STATE IN BUSINESS. SELLING FOREST TREES. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, October 22. For a long time. past the nursery men have been urging for the Government to discontinue selling to private individuals trees raised in the State nurseries for public purposes. The request was urged upon Mr Coates and his colleagues again and again and when they left office the demand was left as a legacy to their successors. The final decision was thus shifted on to Mr W. B. Taverner, in his capacity of Commissioner of State Forests, who after several conferences with the representatives of the nurserymen decided that his department could not go out of the business altogether, but would revise its price-list in some directions and discontinue the production of trees in certain localities. The nurserymen were not altogether satisfied with this adjustment of affairs but at' the week-end the Minister let them understand that he could not disregard the public interests and that for the time, being the matter was closed.

SAWMILLING. A matter of a somewhat kindred nature is just now a bone of contention between the two sections of the sawmilling business. During the dying hours of the last Parliament the Sawmillers’ Federation induced Mr A. D. McLeod, then Minister of Lands, to introduce a Bill compelling all the sawmillers in the Dominion to federate under its banner and to make themselves responsible for certain payments, restrictions, and observances in the interests of the industry. The Bill which made its first and only appearance on the very last day of the session got its first reading—which means merely laying it on the table of the House and then disappeared into oblivion. Now its promoters are arranging for its reproduction, and it is understood there are promises behind it of a weighty nature. More than this has not yet been revealed, but its chances of reaching the Statute Book this session do not appear particularly rosy. ALL’S WELL. The “Dominion” takes a sane view of a problem that still exercises society. “ New Zealand’s birthrate,” it says, “ continues to fall, and is now one of the lowest in the world. At one time this fact might have occasioned greater concern than it does to-day. People have learned to look at the relation between the birth and death-rates to come at the lcernal of the matter. Our death-rate is the lowest in the world, and, by setting it against the birthrate, it is found that our rate of natural increase Is comparatively high. The number of births is important, but the gain over deaths is more so. Time was in New Zealand when there were high birth and death-rates, sometimes combined with a stationary population. Much of the waste and suffering represented by the double high rate has been eliminated in New Zealand.” This is a summary of the situation that need not suggest national decadence. BONUS ON VENISON.

The suggestion of Mr W. J. Poison, the very wide-awake member for Stratford, that the Government should provide’ a subsidy of two pence or three pence per pound to encourage the export of venison is not finding much favour with members of Parliament or with commercial authorities. They maintain that if this method of getting rid of superfluous deer were employed, it would result, - not in reducing the herds to reasonable dimensions, but in keeping them at a level which would provide regular employment for a considerable body of commercial sportsmen. Venison from New Zealand, they sav hns never been in strong demand in London, or in any other market of consequence, and its supply even with a bonus of twopence or threepence per pound would he a very hazardous business. Tf the number of deer- has to he reduced, it is argued, it will be less costly to pay for-their destruction than to subsidize the gunmen.