THE PRICE OF TIMBER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1114, 26 June 1913, Page 4

THE PRICE OF TIMBER.

A STEADY RISE. Everyone knows that the price of timber has gone up during recent years, but there are many people who have no idea of the great advance which has taken place. Talking with one of Wellington’s leading business men a Post reporter obtained some interesting information showing how the tariff has gone up during the past thriteen years. In 1900 red pine (ordinary building) was selling here at 9s 6d per hundred feet; to-day the price is 12s 6d. The advance in the price of heart of matai lias been more marked. Thirteen years ago local timber merchants charged 13s 6cl for it, and now they are getting 225. Totara is scarcer than it was, and that tact is to a great extent responsible for an advance of 7s since 1900, viz., from 18s to 255, and in the case of totara, clean for joiners’ purposes, 27s 6d. “Kauri is kauri nowadays,” said our informant. “The price is going up all the time, and through no fault of the merchants. The bushes up North are not so numerous as they were, the demand is greater, and wages have gone up.” The speaker went on to say that first-class kauri fetched 19s a hundred in 1900, and now the price for 12-inch widths is 365, while a shilling is charged for every additional inch, so that a person who wanted kauri a foot and a-nalf in width would have to pay at the rate of 42s per hundred feet. A fair quantity of Oregon pine is still coming into Wellington and is fetching 20s.