The Timber Industry in the South.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7929, 19 September 1905, Page 4

The Timber Industry in the South.

OF A MASTER SAWMILL EH. nrXEDIV. Sept 1 t An interesting interview with a r master sawiuiller is published in the v Times this morning. He said r"Just ■ t - now we haw-all sorts of special difficulties. Even for the wo<*ls we can

sell 1 hj(• market is falling. wliile our cost of production is mounting up all til." lime. It k not ,„dy that wages haw gone up. 'insurance rate* have -gone i,ji on men and mills, till insurances alone make a l.i- dragon our proliis. As to wagvs, let me assure jon t li.it m> saniuiller with a grain of sons.- ever wants lounderpa\ his men. A uood man is novel' It-tier Worth goo.l inone\ than lie is on a sawmill. Wlu-n we p.-t a good man now ive often pay him a good hit more than the award rates. Tile trouble. we liml. is that tminimum. is lived so that neither the go.*l man nor the employer has a lair show. When anv man is brought grevn to this work wv have to pay him at onre the same wage as if he were an experience.! ha ml. Tlu- result of this is n hardship 1 hat cuts all ways. it destroys the spirit of emulation. 'When a man knows he must gel a substantial lix.-d wage in any case he -won't go to any great trouble to !w.*eome a spi-cially g.iod worker When a sivcialh good worker sees an indillerent man alongside him getting the same pay. the g-ood man gets discotiragnl. 1 .am not disputing the li.vd of a minimum. I'hc idea of -.1 'minimum is to slop sweating. and secure for every honest worker hon.-st pay. No one quarrels with that principle : Inn if a democracy gets drunk with its own power, ami puts up a minimum so far above the standard of the workers' necessity ami comfort as to strangle an industry, where is the sense or justice of it '.» We've reached a critical stag*': we can't raise prices : and if profits slump any lower we cannot carry on. Things being in that position we are threatened by importations of Oregon."