THE TIMBER TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 120, 23 May 1928, Page 4

THE TIMBER TRADE.

POSITION IN WESTLAND.

According to Mr. F. L. Turley, secretary of the Westland Timber Work<ys'\Union, the position of the timber industry in the West Coast of the South Island is very bad indeed. Mr. Turley stated, in an interview last week, that out of about 87 sawmills on the West Coast there were 65 working and 22 closed down. Most of those cutting were working short-handed and only part-time. The position was so serious that he anticipated, in addition to the men already thrown out of employment since the commencement of the slump over two years ago, another four hundred sawmill employees will be out of work if trade does not improve next month. The timber trade was one of the first industries to feel the effects of the general depression through which the Dominion has been passing in the past two or three years.

Another factor which seriously affected the industry was the embargo placed on the exportation of rimu to Australia some eight years ago. The embargo had the effect of causing Australian timber merchants to find some substitute for rimu, with a result that American timbers were imported in large quantities, cutting out the New Zealand trade. The lifting of the embargo recently, he said, was not going to help the New Zealand trade for a considerable time, as the rimu market had been lost and would take some time to regain.