TIMBER OR GASH?

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 49, 27 August 1923, Page 7

TIMBER OR GASH?

TRADE DEMANDS EXPORT

THE SHORT VIEW AND THE LONG ONE. ,-.

The Main Trunk-Timber Trade Protection Guild; at its' last annual meeting, made an attack on the Government policy that restricts the export of timber. The guild says that the restriction amounts to prohibition of export. ■'Assuming, for arguments sake, that the. last-mentioned contention is correct, a- very plain issue is thus raised between the supporters and the opponents of the present forestry policy; The issue is so vital that,some people, are wondering whether the New Zealaid Forestry League will be heard from on the subject.

The main argument for export seems ttfbe thatit is "economic" to exchange our soft woods, which Australia lacks, for Australian hardwoods,' which New Zealand needs. It is.contended that' if New' Zealand paid for wood with wood, the trade balance (adverse to New Zea<land) with' Australia would be reduced: > Iri short, this contention is that New Zealand's timber should be turned into cash value.

Forest" .conservationists reply that, even if the' matter is '.considered merely as a cash proposition; It will pay . to conserve the timber. Over arid ab'aye that, they say that, if a policy of export is pursued, forty years- at most will exhaust the timber; leaving New Zealand dependent on other countries, which hf that time will also be approaching fo're'st-destitutibh; so that New Zealand will be faced not merely with high prices, but with ari actual timber-famine:

Where any dwindling natural as3et is coricerried, the advocates-of rapid liquidation always possess more immediate personal interests than the advocates of conservation^ ■', The' greater energy inherent in such interests cannot be met except by counter-energy, of an impersonal quality, among forest conservationists.

Some, of the friends of forestry consider that Sir Francis Bell's restriction of export policy is in poltical danger arisirig, out of. the commercial considerations referred to above, and that a- re* Tirai of public attention is needed. '