REAFFORESTATION ON WEST COAST

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23262, 24 February 1941, Page 10

REAFFORESTATION ON WEST COAST

CO TBX EDITOB OF THB PBBSS. Sir, —Amateur forestry experts and scenery faddists have always had a free hand to castigate the sawmillers. The industry, in the knowledge that it is carrying on a necessary. public service, has been satisfied to turn a deaf ear to ignorant comment. But in your issue of February 22 you have seen fit to allow “Ngahere Makutu” to indulge his passion for smart writing beyond the usual good taste prescribed by “The Press,” as well as to make a personal attack over a penname. T am not concerned at present to engage in an argument about what ought to be done to find a substitute industry to take the place of the existing milling of indigenous bush. This is the concern of the Government primarily, but also of all the inhabitants of the district—certainly not of the sawmillers alone. What the sawmilling industry of Westland protests against, in the strongest terms permissible, is that an anonymous writer, in a •special article, should be allowed to infer that the , failure to make provision for the , future is 7 the fault of the operating i sawmillers. The industry carries on • under the close . supervision of the Government; there is no remote justi- ' fleation for the cheap sneer at the sawmillers, and we ask for the withdrawal by the writer of this part of his article. —Yours, etc., J, W. CALLWELL, ■ Chairman, West Coast Sawmillers’ Association. Greymouth, February 22, 1941.