A LANGUISHING INDUSTRY.
[WESTPOIIT EVENINO STAB.]
Efforts, more or less well directed, have been made from time to time to foster a local trade in timber. The supply is abundant, and as an article of export, timber either rough hewn or sawn should obtain a ready sale. In Melbourne the demand for white pine, for packing-case manufacture, is solely limited by the supply, and in white pine the Buller District abounds. There is also in Melbourne an equally good demand for all other kinds of timber, indigenous to New Zealand soil. In the treeless districts of Canterbury and Otago there is also found a ready and constantly increasing demand for timber and the number of vessels engaged solely in the timber trade at the ports of Lyttleton and Dunedin represent a large aggregate tonnage. Thus the field is open for enterprise, but so far any efforts to realise the source of wealth, every where present on plain or mountain side, have not proved a pronounced success. Private individuals working by twos and threes have strove hard and earned little- They have found it much easier to pick out timber fit for the axe thon to find a market. The local demand has of late been met by local enterprise, the steam saw mill at the South Spit furnishing the supply of "sawn stuff" which heretofore, by strange anomaly, had been brought from Hokitika, but beyond this the industry has not expanded. No trade organization exists whereby timber from the Buller can be placed in distant markets, and the craft coming well laden to the port go away in ballast. There is in this respect a very obvious void, and the new year should not be allowed to away without the void being filled and effectually. It is venturing on •delicate ground to suggest to Westport •commercial men the existence of any field for enterprise beyond that under their own immediate supervision, and as represented within the walls of their coimtang-houses, but a suggestion that action is expedient in the direction now indicated, may, perhaps, be accepted in the spirit it is offered.
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Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1140, 9 January 1874, Page 3
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352A LANGUISHING INDUSTRY. Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1140, 9 January 1874, Page 3
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