AMERICA'S ADVANTAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 2, 2 July 1926, Page 8

AMERICA'S ADVANTAGE

AVERAGE EMPLOYEES PEE MILL.

Through its monthly organ, the Dominion Federated Sawmillers' Association confirms a statement in the "N.Z. Building Trades Journal" that freights on timber are approximately as under:— Hundred Miles sq. ft. carried. Baltic ports to N.Z 5/3}£ 11,538 Sacifie ports to N.Z. 4/- to 5/9 5,681 Greymouth to Wellington 4/9 273 Ohakune to Wellington . 5/» 202 The association's organ contends that among the factors that enable Pacific Slope lumbermen to land timber in New Zealand "at prices with which it is impossible for the New Zealand sawmiller to compete, is the system of mass production, and this is indicated by the fact that the average number of employees per mill in U.S.A. is 210, as against the^average of 21 in New Zealand. A recent visiting lumberman from Washington stated that one milling company alone in that State produces annually almost exactly the same quantity of timber as is produced by the whole of the/ mills of New Zealand put together. '

"Further, owing to the great volume of timber per acre, its even size, length and texture, and light weight, water carriage and numberless other, natural advantages (the parallels of -which are actual physical disadvantages in New Zealand), the timber of the Pacific Coast lends itself peculiarly to mechanical processes which are physically impossible in New Zealand. This is fully borne out by the telling fact that, to produce 1000 super, feet of timber on the Pacific Coast takes but from 20 to 25 man hours, against 35 to 45 man hours for the same operation in New Zealand; and the New Zealand timberworker in the main is decidedly no slouch! Reducing these man-hour, figures to actual costs per 100 super. feet discloses that the wages cost of producing timber in New Zealand is exactly double the cost in U.S.A."