The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1917. TIMBER PRICES AND EXPORT.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 November 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1917. TIMBER PRICES AND EXPORT.

(With which is incorporated The Tai* hapo Post and Waimarino News).

Owing to faulty information and an indifferent understanding of the subject, the Wanganui Chronicle blundered into making an undeserved attack on Main Trunk Sawmillcrs. To any person having only a superficial or casual knowledge who read the column of indictment, it was perfectly obvious that the journal had been made a victim to the vagaries of some of those whose self interest tends to injure and hold back the progress that should, and would, come more rapidly to the already great West Coast seaport. The alleged information was of a grossly exaggerated character, some of it so much so as to render it quite untrue. The epitomised argument of the indictment was that through unjustifiable increases in the price of timbdr Main Trunk Sawmillcrs had increased the cost of building a fourroomed house from £350 to £825 and other sized houses proportionately. Surely, the Chronicle's informants have some knowledge of the extent of the Main Trunk Sawmrilling industry in its relationship to that of the Dominion, if so they would have an understanding of just how far it affected the prices and the export of timber from New Zealand, and yet, even in this, the Chronicle’s ‘ * Telepathic’ ’ timber men had to consult Mr, S. I. Clark, of Auckland. We can forgive our Contemporary for ; the (absurd issues it put to its readers from the evidence the letter gave because we feel, sure they had been readied up for him. Mr. Clarke’s evidence fell almost culpably short of what it might have stated in disclosing the Main Trunk Sawmillcrs’ position in connection with the fuss about exportation of timber, or the receivers of the letter lamentably misrepresented it. W ill the Wanganui aspersers be surprised to learn that the export of timber from the Main Trunk was less to March 1917 than it was in the year to March 1916? To the 77,528,172 feet exported in 1917 the whole of the Wellington and Wanganui districts, including the V airarapa and the Main Trunk, only contributed just over three million feet. While this extensive sawmilling area only exports less than four million feet out of a total ""ess-

ported of seventy-seven million feet, surely it can have but little influence in fixing cither export or home prices; and yet the misfeanecs of the Main Trunk Sawmillers were magnified into making them appear little removed from the worst class of exploiters. To be precise in showing the decrease in exportation of timber from Main Trunk mills we will take the actual figures. In the year ending 31st March, 1916, timber exported from the Wanganui and Wellington districts, which include Wairarapa, as well as all the country right up the Main Trunk district, totalled 3,406,617 feet while to March 1917 the total was only 1,910,918 feet, and despite higher prices in 1917 millers only received £10,524 as compared with £17,608 paid to them in 1916. These figures indicate that \ there is a very much reduced output, or that millers are supplying focal needs in preference to exporting. We think both conditions have been in operation. Taking into account- the higher price of timber it will be seen that little more than half the timber } has been exported from the Main Trunk Millers than was exported last year. We think this knocks the bottom out of the charge against the Main Trunk Industry of exporting to the 1 neglect of local requirements. Besides it is ridiculous to saddle the men who only export three millions out of sev-enty-seven millions, with making timber prices. The Main Trunk Sawmillers will most assuredly charge what larger millers fix as the price, just as uniform charges pervade all other trade and industry. We have heard it stated on oath, and we nave read in other journals that it has been stated on oath in other places, that sawmill workers’ wages are now one- , third more than before the war. and that, owing to the nature of the labour now available, the output of timber is one-third less. The cost of building houses has jumped up considerably, and we feel sure, unjustifiably, but let us blame those, who by unfair prites are contributing to the trouble. To set Government officials to compute excess profits made from a total income of £10,524 in one year from all sawmillers in the Wellington, and W r anganui districts, including the Main Trunk, we think, our Wanganui Contemporary would regard as something like setting men to find the proverbial needle in the bottle of hay. There could be no excess profits to go to the State, therefore there would be no check on exportation. W r e shall have to pay the market price for timber as we ; do for butter, cheese and all other products, whether it is in the interests of the State to stop or limit exportation of otherwise. The Chronicle, or rather its informants have incidentally shown that the cost of building erection has gone up to an amazing extreme, but a grossly exaggerated estimate; jsvlen, :shows clearly jthat tyie Sawmiiler can only have £9 oQt of £2OO a room laid to his charge. This estimate claims twenty thousand feet of timber for an ordinary six-roomed house; we are not experts, but we think that is an exaggeration by at least four thousand feet. Conceding everything, however, it has been I shown that in an increase of £2OO per room the sawmiiler can only be debited with £9 at the most. The exportation trouble made so much of has little existence in fact, and it now remains for Wanganui architects and builders to apologise to the Main Trunk Sawmilling industry and look elsewhere for the real exploiting offenders .