The Timber Industry

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1016, 5 July 1930, Page 6

The Timber Industry

This is the twenty second of a series of informative articles that arc being published in THE SUN weekly throughout 1030, describing many of New Zealand's most important industries.

DIFFICULTIES FACED BY NEW ZEALAND SAWMILLERS IT is a well-known fact that American timber can be landed I in Auckland and, after import duties have been paid, can be sold cheaper than King Country products direct from the pulsing centre of our own industry! One may well ask, Why ? At the basis of the trouble, of course, are production costs and low import tariffs. Other pressures add their weight, making the whole problem one that requires the practical applied wisdom of the best brains in the land if this great industry is to take its place in the full industrial development of New Zealand.

Few' industries employ more labour than timber, directly or indirectly. No industry pays more freight a ton in the quantity of each truck freighted. No manufacturing industry has been of greater assistance to farmers, in opening up country for farming, paying royalties to farmers, finding employment for farmers and means of cheap timber for sheds and dwellings. The labour is mostly in the country districts. Despite attempted palliatives, ground is being steadily lost, as the following figures will show. Total production in—1926 353,000,000 feet. 1927 306,000,000 feet. 1928 269,000,000 feet. A more interesting comparison is show'n in the export and import figures for 1929:—Importation from overseas: 66,044.894 feet, valued at £789,656; New Zealand timber exported overseas: 39,103.191 feet, valued at £439,342. EMPLOYMENT FOR 11,000 Any one who has the real interest of our country at heart will admit that this comparison is alarming. Just what effect the position has on Dominion as a whole, and particularly on the labour market, may be gauged from the fact that at present about 7,000 are employed, whereas if our timbers were used as extensively as they deserve to be, this number would run between 10.000 and 11.000. Alany factors have operated to bring about the present state of affairs, but the most prominent of these are the use of imported timbers, the erection of few T er small dwellings and the continued general depression in trade. Of these three factors the importing of foreign products does the most harm and is a great and growing evil. In spite of increased import duties and other means taken to induce freer use of our own timbers, importations show a steady increase in proportion to the total amount of timber being used. The building by-laws vary considerably in different centres, and are not alw r ays favourable to the economic use of New Zealand timbers, and often favour the use of foreign. In many cases the merits of New Zealand timbers are under-estimated when competing with foreign tim-

! bers. These are all factors that a.ffect the New Zealand timber industry to a marked degree. In manufacturing butter boxes we have to compete with Sweden, where the millers pay 6id an hour in wages : against our 2s an hour; and where 1 150,000 feet of timber is taken off an i acre, compared with about 20,000 feet in our own land. A MILLER’S OPINION "When the position of the New Zealand timber industry has been compared with other industries or when one comes to view the conditions under which the New Zealand timber industry has been working, says Mr. G. A. Gamman, of Mamaku, It looks as If special attention has been given to see that it is kept in a state of struggling on a bare existence, a target for extracting the high- |

est possible charges that it can stand, either justly or unjustly, until it is now in the jaws of destruction by foreign invasion/’ REDUCING COSTS The very best that New' Zealand mills can do is to combine to cut down office, travelling, collecting and selling costs; this has been done in the North Island by forming the Sawmillers* Timber Trading Company. This company has been the means of eliminating each individual miller putting out travellers and agents at commissions, competing ruinously one with the other, paying out a lot of money in commissions, and making many bad debts. The result being neither economical nor efficient. The Co-operative Trading Company has not increased prices but has lowered them. Yet for some reason there is a great number of the public and farmers antagonistic to this co-opera-tion. GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE The serious plight of the timber

1 industry led the Government two ! years ago, to restrict imports of sawn timber at the same time as it lifted the embargo on exports from Xev Zealand. Unfortunately the restriction on sawn timber was not sufficient. Timber still continued to come infron the Pacific Slope, and though it now ; comes in large or "junk"' sizes, tie work it affords New- Zealand workmen in recutting is negligible comparer with the work afforded New Zealanci ers if the same amount of timber had been cut from a local forest In the case of a log cut from the New Zetland forest, the work begins with the timber measurer, who assesses the amount of timber available. It gfies work for the surveyors, who delineate the block, the clerks who set down the result of the measurers’ calculations, the iron merchants who suppi? the miller’s contractor with plant, and the merchant or grocer who supplies his commissariat department. MONEY FOR NEW ZEALANDERS The money paid to the bushmes, i haulers, logging hands and mill-wort-

ers is all paid to New Zealanders. The man who works the screaming bandsaw spends his money in this country. The saw-doctor who keeps the saws in order does the same. The timber en route to the markets gives work to New Zealand railway and transport systems. In the heyday of the timber industry, the short line between Ra«tihi and Ohakune, carrying thousands of feet of Timber daily to the main line, was the best-paying section of rail in New Zealand. Indirectly everybody in the Dominion benefits w 7 hen the New Zealand log is hewn and milled. When the timber is imported, only a few benefit, and the bulk of the money goes outside.