PRICES OF TIMBER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 110, 11 May 1909, Page 4

PRICES OF TIMBER.

EVIDENCE BEFORE THE cor -r*. SAWMILL. riSXS. £S* Telegraph. — Speoial to Thb Post.}, AUCKLAND, This Day. In giving evidence at the Timber Commission yesterday, Mr. David Goldie, timber merchant, dealing with the priceof kauri, said that in his opinion it was not excessive when one took into account the charges which had to be met t>y the sawmillers, and the risks he had to take. In the first place, there were the high charges exacted by the and others in the shape of royalties, in some cases amounting to &s per 100 feet. In the second place, the miller had to buy several years ahead, during which time he had to pay interest on the money borrowed, or, if he was fortunate enough to possess his own capital to lose the interest on the money he had sunk. Then the miller had to pay high local rates, wheel his ■timber over all sorts ofr*oads, pay fees "for floating licenses, and where timber had to be carried over settlers' land, ■the miller was very often compelled to pay charges which almost amounted to blackmail. _ Further loss was caused by the depreciation of logs — which had very often to be left lying for years before they could be floated or taken away — by the depredations of the sea worm and by fire. It was folly to think that they could conserve the, kauri. The wages paid to the men were admitted by the secretary of the union to /be high, and from the arduous nature of the work he (witness) _ thought they should be high. In addition, millers had to pay very high rates for accident insurance, in some cases, amounting to £4 ' 10s for every £100 of wages paid. It was absolutely absurd, continued Mr. Goldie, to say that the present slump in the building trade was due to the present high price of timber. He ridiculed the idea of placing an export duty on kauri. The Government, through the High Commissioner, was endeavouring to push, the sale of kauri timber in the United Kingdom. The imposing of such a duty would at once put a fstop to anything of this nature being done. It would not save the kauri, as thousands of pounds worth of the timber was being destroyed by fire every year. The prices obtained for the timber sent away enabled the miller to pay the high rates of wages at present in existence here. If an export duty was imposed millers would either have to reduce the wages or stop milling kauri timber to a large extent. He did not think the duty xipon outside timber should be raised, because Oregon was now to some extent taking the place of medium kauri, which was almost impossible to procure, because of the inaccessibility of the kauri, and, as a consequence, the delay in getting from the stump to the mill. In replying to the members of the commission, witness said it took from 500 to 3000 years for a kauri tree to reach maturity, which put it out of the question to conserve it for merchantable purposes. If Oregon, pine .could be grown here in 20 or 30 years, so as to be ready for the market, by all means let them do so. The sawmiller, in hi& opinion, should precede settlement, but should not be forced. We should first settle the open lands available, pnd then tackle the bush lands. A number of millers had erred in establishing mills without having suißcient capital behind them, with the result that they were now going into liquidation. There was no combine in the trade to keep up the price of timber. They had an association which had agreed upon a schedule, buu all of the members had not stuck to it, which, he thought, was a pity. The temptations held out by builders were sometime^ difficulti to withstand.