The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1918. WHO IS THE PROFITEER?

Taihape Daily Times, 12 June 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1918. WHO IS THE PROFITEER?

(With which is Incorporated The /*i* nape Post and Watuwiii-io News).

The New Zealand timber' industry is beiiig made the snuttlccock of people whose motives will not bear close analytical observation. There are those who wish, to entirely prohibit the export of New Zealand timber and the machnery of the Efficiency Board and of the Board of Trade has been set m motion with a view to accomplishing some such end. The people of Australia, to whom surplus timber is sent, have learned" of what is being attempted here ancTthe other day we published a cable from Australia which was a strong protest against the Government adopting any measure that would penalise the Commonwealth. There is, of course, behind all this commotion and concern about the timber business, "just as there is in the increase in the cost of living, although to a much less degree, the question of public interest. Only the most casual observation makes it quite clear that with the question generally it is that those who buy from sawmillers are having to pay an increased price for their building material. The Efficiency Board or any other institution, with the whole body politic behind it could not induce farmers to grow wheat at an arbitrarily fixed price, and similar experiences will most assuredly be met with respecting timber. The whole question settles down to one class wishing to fatten on the immolation of another. Experience has taught us that all the price manoeuvring by Boards has only resulted in their going up and up. There is no journal that would fight to such a bitter end against profiteering provided a Government ruled that placed the common weal before common trickery, and if we could discover any real cause to tear to pieces the processes by which sawmillers were unfairly increasing the charges for their product our columns would be made particularly interesting. The first fact one runs against in probing into the timber industry is the huge increased cost of conducting the business. There are those who would regard as false the truth about the increased cost of sawmilling accessories, but it may be learned from newspaper advertisement that although fifty per cent, more wages is being offered, sawmill hands and bush-workers are unobtainable, and it is a matter of common knowledge that the men that are available can only give an output some twenty-five to thirty per cent, below the pre-war average. On the other hand, the New Zealand demand for timber has fallen off to a most surprising degree, and were it not for the export trade very many mills would have to close down, and, sequentially, very many of our most deserving pioneer settlers, who have put their all into timber, would be hopelessly ruined. The men who produce building timber are surely entitled to similar treatment to that secured by force of numbers to other producing industries. Simmered down, the hubbub is an unfair effort "of those who use timber to compel millers to mill it at a loss, or at no profit, while the cost of building can go on soaring to outrageous heights. The people are mustered and paraded as the victims of sawmillers and the cry is raised that one shilling per hundred increases the cost of a worker's dwelling by forty pounds. We are quite prepared to admit that it does so increase the cost, and we would even go much farther, at the same time, it is the men who are making the noise that are pocketing the money; the noise is the camouflage. One shilling per hundred on timber increases the cost of erecting a worker's dwelling by just eight pounds, a calculation any child can make. There is a spirit of unfairness abroad and sawmillers are being improperly saddled with the sins against the community which lie at the doors of others. If millers increased their prices by five shillings it would then only mean an increase of forty" pounds on a worker's dwelling, in which sixteen thousand feet of timber was used. Yet there is a demand that sawmillers shal be shut down and ruined because they export timber that cannot be utilised in New Zealand. Were'Tc possible to profitably lessen the first cost of timber, by, say, two shillings per hundred, would that appreciably lessen the cost of building? It is the very height of fallacy to so contend. If the sawmillers were not supplying the needs of this country; if there was a shortage of timber, as there is a shortage of wheat, timber-dealers and the public would have cause for complaint. Sawmillers are not wanting in patriotism; they could export their entire production at an average of four to five shillings per Hundred feet increase over what they are charging.

New Zealanders for it, and still there is no sign of timber shortage. Are those dealers and others who are moving for muzzling the sawmillers prepared to pay the prices received for exported timber? Then, so long as they are having all their needs supplied at a very much lower price they have no just cause for complaint. It seems that sawmillers might, with perfect justness, claim to have their market controlled by outside values, as is the case with meat, wheat, and wool; if not, why not? Why should a sawmiller be asked to sell to a New Zealander for ten shillings that which he is offered fifteen shillings for by an Australian? What is sauce for one producing goose is sauce for another producing gander, and yet a body of dealers would make it appear that the sawmilling industry is an outrageously profiteering, thieving affair. When people talk about one shilling on timber increasing the cost of a dwelling by forty pounds, let us remember that the sawmiller gets eight pounds of the forty and an exploiter go-between gets the other thirty-two pounds for nothing. The white pine question has lomed up largely, and efforts have been made to stop what exportation is taking place, but when it is understood that little else than what Is quite unsuitable for butter-box making is being sent away we realise that it is the price question that is at the root of the agitation. White pine is limited; millers go much further into the rough country to get it, and the cost of getting and milling has of necessity increased. Dairy companies thoughlessly complain of an increased cost of fivepence or, sixpence a box, which is partially the result of dearer labour, while saying nothing ab&"St their butter-fat having increased in price from- about sixpence to eighteenpence a pound; surely the box increase is an insignificant affair. Exhaustively considered it is found that the desire to stop timber export is purely an effort to make millers reduce the price of their product; there is no shortage of ordinary timber; dealers and others can still have much more than the present demand at quite four shillings per hundred less than the millers can net for it on the Ausralian market. It •is our duty to stand against any effort to damage a Main Trunk industry by dissimulation and unfair methods. It is not the sawmiller who is increasing the cost of building by forty pounds a dwelling. When one sees how timber is won from over mountains and rivers; felled miles from where it is milled; brought in by dangerous and difficult ways and means, it is truly surprising that it can be produced at the price at which millers charge for it.