PRICE CONTROL ON TIMBER

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26856, 8 October 1952, Page 10

PRICE CONTROL ON TIMBER

Restriction Not To Be Lifted MINISTER’S REPLY TO OPPOSITION (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 7. It is not the Government’s policy to remove native timbers from price control, according to the Minister of Forests (Mr E. B. Corbett). Mr Corbett was replying in the House of Representatives this evening to the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition (Mr C. F. Skinner), who said it was disturbing to find that the New Zealand Forest Service was advocating a drastic cut in the production of indigenous timber and its removal from price control. Mr P. Kearins (Opposition, Waimarino) said that indigenous timber should be used for house-building and that there was sufficient to build another 250,000 homes for the working people. Science had a long way to go before it could produce a method of treatment which would make exotic timber as good as indigenous timber. Mr A. H. Nordmeyer (Opposition, Brooklyn) said that the recent report of the Director of the Forest Service was the most “revolutionary and reactionary” that had come before Parliament for some time. Abolition of price control for indigenous timber which would mean that the price of clean heart timber would rise by £2 or more a hundred feet. It was desirable that more exotic timber be used, but at the moment there were too many difficulties in the way and differences between the experts on methods of treatment.

Mr Corbett said it was not the Government’s policy to decontrol the price of indigenous timber. That course of action had been advocated by the department. He said that he had looked for some way to balance the use of exotic timber, and at this stage he felt that some measure of price control would meet the situation.