Timber Prices and Export

Progress, Volume XIV, Issue 1, 1 September 1918, Page 310

Timber Prices and Export

We have it on good authority that a reduction in. the prices of: New Zealand timber will shortly be brought about. The millers have co-operated with the Board of Trade and the Minister of Forestry, Sir Francis Bell, for the important purpose of controlling the output and the export of timber. The matter was first raised by the dairy producers, who feared that the supply of box timber would be worked out at an early date. They looked askance at the large export cf white pine. to Australia, but we find white pine quite contrary to New Zealand experienceis one of the few timbers which will resist the borer in Australian Climate, and that even the poorer qualities are greatly in demand for that market. So white pine which the butter box users will not take can bo exported at good prices to Australia. The effect of the good prices for timber exported has been to raise local prices to a parity. This has been the difficulty in the butter and cheese industry. The local community has had quite unfairly to pay famine prices because there was a famine demand for butter and cheese at the other end of the world. To keep the local price down, and at the same time enable producers to take full advantage of the high export price, an equalisation fund was provided two seasons ago out of a tax on the exported butter. The miilers have adopted the principle of equalisation, and they will co-operate in providing export supplies,, ; while at the same time producing enough timber for the local market at prices which will be

fixed by the Board of Trade, after inquiry into the heightened cost of milling and transport owing to the war. It is not anticipated that we can get back to pre-war prices, but to be relieved of the burden of paying something equal to the export price on the whole consumption of timber in New Zealand will be an important protection to the building industry, for which our readers will feel thankful.

An opinion, was once held in Paris that. General Foch's methods were similar to those of the Kaiser, and that he believed a battle could not be won without sacrificing men. This irritated him when it was reported to him by one of his aides, and he snapped : "Sacrificing men' Sacrificing Germans, they must mean. I don't throw away my own soldiers"