COST OF TIMBER.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19887, 16 May 1936, Page 8

COST OF TIMBER.

ARE INCREASES JUSTIFIED? GOVERNMENT TO INVESTIGATE. REQUEST TO SAWMILLERS. ißy Telegraph.—Press Association.> WELLINGTON, Saturday. A special investigation is to be made immediately stated the Prime Minister, the Right Hon. M. J. Savage, to-day into the reason for increases in the price of butter boxes and timber merchants are being requested to withhold any increase in prices' until such time asflhey can prove to the satisfaction of the Government justification for these increases. Mr Savage added that the Minister of Industries and Commerce and the Commissioner of State Forests had met representatives of the sawmilling industry and explained the Government's attitude in regard to any Increase in the price of timber both for building purposes and the manufacture of butter boxes. As a result of that conference it had been decided that the sawmillers must forward to the Government at the earliest possible moment flgures to prove that the anticipated increase in {he price of timber is justified. In the meantime all sawmillers are being advised that they must not increase their prices until such time as their statements and flgures have been examined by the Government and this, declared the Prime Minister, will be done as quickly as possible. Letters are also being sent to all timber merchants requesting them to forward the necessary data to the Government so that it. will he in a posilion to decide whether or not the increases are justified.