PRICE OF TIMBER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 14428, 19 July 1907, Page 8

PRICE OF TIMBER.

TO TEE KDIXO£. Sj T) —Will Mr Goss please say ho* many Christchurch timber merchants are owners of or shareholders in bush sawmills ? Perhaps that will explain tho present high price of timber hero. It Is marvellous how it used to pay timber merchants in Christchurch to sell red pine at 10s per hundred feet without any extras, ordinary or figured, wet or dry, stripped or unstripped was all one price then. Now we pay 15s _ for ordinary, with 2s extra for stripping, and 2s and 4s extra for figured. Kauri used to be sold here at about 1 1 s Qd; now it is 275. "Where does the extra coat come inP Any advance in wages that has taken place does not increase the first cost by a penny per hundred feet. I understand that many mills are cutting from Government land under a royalty. Perhaps tha wicked Government is collaring tho difference, or are we allowing these men to monopolise a valuable national asset P I am afraid, according to Mr Goes’s statement, that the Christchurch timber merchants are living on their losses and how great those losses are no one can realise until the merchants are dead and their solicitors apply fox) probate. —I am, etc., RED PINE.