SCARCITY OF TIMBER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 1174, 15 February 1919, Page 5

SCARCITY OF TIMBER.

REGULATION OF PRICES. RESTRICTION ON EXPORT. Wellington, Thursday. Tbe high price of timber, accompanied by its great scarcity, is referred to in the annuil report of tbe Wellington Builders and Contractors' Association. The repirt states: —Members have been much exercised by repeated and numerous increases in the price 3of ordinary building timber?. These have so seriously increase:* in all parts of the Dominion as to warrant tbe Builders' Federation in securing data and submitting it to the Board of Trade and tbe Minister of Forestry, with an urgent request tbat immediate steps be taken to prevent the further increases in prices, and to prevent the draining of available supplies by export to Australia.

It is bopei the protest made will result in a price commensurate with the cost of production being fixed by the Government for different classes of timber. Tbe rapid depletion of our forests gives cause for prompt steps being taken by the Government to adopt a scheme of systematic planting of forest trees for future supplier, and the Builders' Federation ia active in urging upon the Government the need of th's.