SAWMILLS TO CLOSE DOWN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3088, 9 January 1909, Page 5

SAWMILLS TO CLOSE DOWN.

CONFERENCE OF SAWMILLERS

NUMBER OF MEN LIKELY TO BE EFFECTED.

By Telegraph—Press Association. PALMERSTON N., January 8. At a conference held at Palmerston yesterday there were sawmillers present from Auckland, West Coast of South Island, Rangitikei, Wairarapa, Taranaki and Hawke's Bay. The meeting was not open to the papers. It lasted six hours. Interviewed at the close, a miller said they would close the mills down indefinitely, as the result of the meeting, which was the most representative gathering of sawmillers ever held here, and probably ever held in New Zealand. There were fully .100 mills represented, averaging twenty men each. The conference was held to consider the advisability of re-opening some of the closed mills but as the result of the discussion, it is considered that fully fifty mills will close indenfinitely, affecting, at a modest estimate, 1,000 men. The output of the other mills will be restricted. The main factors in the decision are the wholesale importation of Oregon pine and the general stringency of the money market. It has been suggested that the Government should fix the dimension of the tariff as one solution of the difficulty; also make the import duty the same as the export duty on white pine and kauri.