“IN A BAD WAY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 347, 7 May 1928, Page 13

“IN A BAD WAY”

AUSTRALIA’S TIMBER TRADE AUCKLANDER’S IMPRESSIONS “The timber trade is in a bad way in Australia,” said Mr. Arthur Goldie, of Herne Bay, who returned from Sydney by the Niagara to-day. Although Mr. Goldie has been on a holiday trip to Melbourne and Sydney, he could not help noticing the state of the industry in which he is interested. In Sydney Mr. Goldie saw Oregon pine block-stacked 60 and SOft high. The merchants could not get rid of it. "In my opinion the timber will stay there until it rots,” he remarked. “Everywhere I went I piles of timber. It was stacked on punts in the harbour and stacked on the reclcimations.” Mr. Goldie says that in Australia the merchants are selling Oregon pirn under cost price, there is so much In the Aucklander’s opinion there was too much building done after the war, both in New Zealand and Australia, and this is probably the cause of the large quantities of timber coming into both countries. Although Australia lias her own hardwoods, the soft woods have to be imported. Building is going ahead in Sydney, said Mr. %l Goldie. Everywhere he went he saw the most amazing activity. Hugo blocks of fiats, 10 and 14 storeys high, wer© being built, in addition to other large premises. He was very impressed with Sydney’s tramways, whfli he considers are very efficient. Large crowds of people are transported very rapidly and without accident. One day, during the Royal Show, 180,000 people attended that function and 90,000 attended the races. That huge mass of people was moved by the trams in a remarkably short time, without a hitch or an accident. Buses in Sydney run only from the suburbs to the railway station and in Melbourne the buses have been done away with. One of the things which astonished Mr. Goldie was the rows of streets in the Sydney suburbs which have no footpaths and only a track for traffic and pedestrians and yet the streets are fully occupied with houses.

Both Mi*, and Mrs. Goldie considered the Royal Show a wonderful fixture. Everything went off very smoothly. On the day they visited the fixture there were 800 animals in the ring.