TIMBER FOR STREET-PAVING.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 274, 23 November 1894, Page 7

TIMBER FOR STREET-PAVING.

STEP IN WAIROA. The Agent-General has sent a report urging tnat advantage should be taken of the present demand for wood for street paving, to press New Zealand timber on the market. He suggested that Mr Freyberg should be recalled to select a shipment, and to return home to see to its effective distribution. The Premier has communicated with West Coast millers, and they will supply black birch, white pine, totara, and rimu. He does not intend to recall Mr Freyberg, as an officer with the requisite knowledge can easily be procured here. This matter, however, needs to be taken up with more spirit than that yet shewn, for in June last the department of industries sent out a circular on the subject, to which scarcely any response was received.

The Agent-General says the demand for paving timber hag arisen owing to the supply from the Baltic fast becoming exhausted. Jarrah has largely taken itsjplace, but mil-

lers have their hands so full that no fresh orders can be executed till after February, Paris as well as London, is running short, and the result is that wood unsaleable in 1887 now commands £6 12s 6d per . load and cannot at that price be supplied fast enough. Importers cut it into blocks themselves. Mr Freyberg has been investigat • ing the matter, and a Danish expert has been over who considers New Zealand rimu and red beech both suitable for the purpose. Some of the leading firms in London have also spoken in high terms of New Zealand woods. The Tasmanian Government sent a trial shipment of stringy bark of 300,000 ft the least profit on which will be £1,347 and with rising prices, probably more. ’