TIMBER HELD UP

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 38, 14 February 1945, Page 4

TIMBER HELD UP

AUCKLAND SUPPLIES

A TRANSPORT BOTTLENECK

Timber millers and merchants have reacted sharply to the move of the Railways Department this week to curtail rail transport facilities because of the coal shortage and urgent representations have been made to the railways authorities and to the timber controller in Wellington The difficulties which threaten all branches of the building and timber industries in Auckland if timber supplies from the milling areas are not increased have been strongly pointed out. How acute the position has become is easily seen if one visits the timber yards in and around the city, ine yards appear bare, and reserve stocks seem to have disappeared. For weeks past supplies from the forests have been greatly reduced and at times entirely cut off. During the Christmas and New Year holidays there was a complete close-down Then, before the new year's flow had got under way the train strike occurred, with its aftermath of accumulated goods to be worked off. Today there is the coal shortage. While builders clamour for timber, and there is a crying need for timber for schools, homes and other buildings, the millers and merchants find themselves in the throes of a transportation bottleneck; stocks are growing at the mills but they cannot be moved to the towns and cities. Since the beginning of January some timber companies have received only a mere trickle of supplies. One timber merchant said to-day that hundreds of thousands of feet of timber in logs was held up at railway sidings in various parts of the province and his veneer and plywood factory in Auckland would have to be closed to-day because of lack of logs to keep it in operation. The State sawmill in the Rotorua district had advised that it could not give delivery of sawn timber for at least a month, due to the railway restrictions. He declared that the position regarding timber supplies was the worst he had known. His firm had contracts for important works, including prefabricated school buildings, which would be held up. Drying kilns had been closed down by some timber merchants because there was no timber to put through them, it was learned. Other kilns would have to be closed unless the position improved. The ramifications of these and other hold-ups would be serious and far-reaching. An Aggravated Shortage "We are suffering from an aggravated transport shortage," was the comment of another merchant. He said transport was No. 1 problem for the timber and bui'.ding industries to-day. Other problems were labour scarcity, burdensome royalties for timber in the bush, and shortage of tractors and parts for tractor repairs. Some headway was being made against these obstacles towards the end-of last year, but developments of the past few weeks had caused such a setback that the ground gained had been completely lost. "If I had three times the quantity of timber I have been able' to secure lately I could handle it with the labour I now have, and would have immediate orders for it," he concluded. While Auckland is being starved for timber there is an impression in some quarters that big stocks of sawn timber are piling up at the mills, but those with a close knowledge of the position declare that there are no large accumulated stocks anywhere. A Taumarunui mill owner who visited Auckland during the past few days said that the mills were "absolutely empty ,, from Taumarunui right across to Taupo. Prolonged wet weather since last May in the-King Country, where the rainfall is always high, has interfered with bush operations to such an extent that none of the mills have been able to work at or near their capacity. The average mill would supply, perhaps, 200,000 feet of sawn timber* a month and would need a reserve of about half a million feet to keep up a steady flow to the building industry.

High Production Costs This Taumarunui mill owner took a gloomy view of the outlook. Costs appear to have reached a level which discourages enterprise. From the mills far back it costs between 7/. and 8/ per hundred superficial feet to deliver timber to the rail. Royalties in the bush vary from 3/6 to 6/6 per 100 ft, and labour costs in the mill average from 11/ to 13/. Added together these items average about 25/. As selling prices range from 22/ for o.b. timber to £2 per 100 ft for heart, of which there is less than 8 per cent, the mills find it exceedingly difficult to make ends meet. In the Rotorua and Bay of- Plenty areas, which are the chief suppliers of timber for Auckland, the situation is better than in the King Country, but recent experience has shown that there is a continuous struggle to secure trucks to rail timber when it is milled. In official circles a brighter view is taken than in the industrial quarters, but it was admitted to-day that the Christmas holidays and the railways strike had combined to cause a six weeks' delay in arrivals of logs and sawn timber in Auckland. Timber Supplies Zoned

The North Island is to-day divided into sixteen zones for the distribution of timber, and allocations to the various zones are made on a quota basis, it was explained. Auckland's normal quota is 2,000,000 ft a'month for all purposes—housing and other building construction, furnituremaking, shipbuilding, ships' dunnage, packing cases, and a small quantity for export overseas—but the figure is increased or decreased as the total supply fluctuates. In November Auckland was a little above the two million basis for the month. To-day it is well below. ■ Quota distribution is merely a more equitable method of making the supply go round as fairly as possible; it cannot increase the quantity at the source. Started six months ago it has dealt a body blow to the black market in timber, and gradually the few remaining leakages ave being stopped; therefore, niore timber is passing through the hands of merchants. But the quota system is, after all, only a marketing procedure and its benefits do not reach back to production, nor has it power to overcome the transport bottleneck.