THE DUTY ON TIMBER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9144, 21 July 1908, Page 4

THE DUTY ON TIMBER.

A motion of a somewhat important nature was passed by the Master ton Chamber of Commerce at its meeting on Friday, bearing on the import duty on timber. The Government will, no doubt, be faced with a difficulty in dealing with this question,

as on the one hand there will be public echoes analogous to that of the resolution of the Masterton Chamber of Commerce, while on the other there will be the no inconsiderate weight of the united protest of one of our chief industries against a continuation of the present tariff rates on timber, much more against any reduction. There is to bo held towards the end of the present month in Wellington a conference of sawmillers from all parts of the Dominion to discuss what the timber trade t?rm3 a "a crisis in the industry through the large importations of Orego.i pine paralysing rise trade." Millers' representatives go so far as to aver that if trie present state of things is allowed to continue for two months longer a thousand men will be thrown out of work. There is, undoubtedly, a good deal to be said in favour of the motion of the Chamber of Commerce, but there are also to be considered the interests of an industry not only employing many hundreds of workers, but in which a considerable amount of capital is invested. Just how much any interference with or maintenance of existing fiscal rates'on timber will affect the industry is for the Government to find out for itself, either by Royal Commission or other equally efficacious means. In a matter where the public welfare is alleged to be too greatly subordinated to vestsd interests, or vice versa, it is plainly not the duty of tne Government as arbiter to take either section at its word, but to get j right to the bedrock of the question I by*its own research.