BUSH NOTES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 4944, 18 February 1895, Page 3

BUSH NOTES.

(By Our Own Corresponded). 1 The impost of £3O per bench on the sawmills within the County will prove a great hardship to the sawmillers in tho Eketahuna district, where recently large sums have been spent in the erection of mills, and as yet no adequate return has been received. The tendency to impose } heavy rates as well as vexatious ( wheel-tyre restrictions, will—as one ] miller puts it—have the effect of ] shutting up the mills, more espee- i ially as the low rates for timber rul- ] ing in Wellington, even now leaves ] little or no return for the capital ] invested. The special rate will operate most particularly on one particular ( mill, the whole of whose timber is ] only earned over about one mile of the road to the boundary of the Pahiatua County. In this as in other •cases where the traffic is over good roads, tho better plan would have been to fix a mileage rate, as proposed by the Chairmanof the Eketahuna Road Board. Thero is no doubt the Government have not acted fairly in the case of the application for a subsidy for the EketahunaTutaekara Road, the revenue to the railway is good now, but must largely increaso from the carriage of timber from the Bush mills, and the sum asked for was very moderate, seeing that a lot of the heavy traffic i is caused by tho carriage of the railway material. Under present- circumstances the life of the Bush miller is not a happy one. i The sawmillers have a just grievance against the Railway Depart- : ment, which arises from the remeasurment of all timber that is 1 delivered at Wellington. It frequently occurs that merchants and builders order specific lengths to be out, and probably the usual length cut at the mills aro some six inches longer, but rather than waste time in cutting this off the order, it is sent on as it is. The extra measurement which may be on a truck jJoad, perhaps amounts to 50 or 100 lftet—is not charged for. The Department, however, unload overy truck, and carefully measure the and charge double railage on ' the quantity for which the miller !{ets nothing, and which, to them, appears a shortage on the consignment note. Besides this charge, which the millers have to pay, there are often many pieces of timber broken and split, which is likewise deducted by the merchant, but the shipper has no redress against the Railway Department. It is true the limber is carried by tho railways, but as only the measurement shown on the mill ticket, is charged to the merchant, and no fraud is intended, it is an injustice to make the miller pay carriage on what he receives no return for, besides careless handling further reducing tho value of his timber. The low prices of ( stock and tho general depression is making Bush settlers feel somewhat anxious about jJk coming winter. In some eases ™o late fires have burnt off all the feed, and the settlers would be only too glad to reduce the stock running on their land. But with such ruinously low prices what aro they to do 'i The natural outcome must be that their power to expend money on improvements this winter will he lessened and bushfalliug and other similar work,, bo largely relied upon as a means of gaining a livelihood by a large, section of our floating popujjtiicw, wjlj be very scarce.