PULP AND PAPER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 15 February 1933, Page 2

PULP AND PAPER

PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRY IN NEW ZEALAND

AN EXPORTER'S VIEW

In connection with the pulp and mper industry and its prospects, “Exporter” writes:

An article appearing in your issue of 7th February, under the pen of “L.C.W.”, while probably giving some quite true information has, by distorting certain facts, left your readers to draw a wrong conclusion. I would like your permission to make some points clear. Firstly, while “L.C.W.” points out the reasons for the pre-eminence of Canada in the pulp and paper industry —her extensive forests, water, power river and sea transport —he shows that Great Britain on the other side of the Atlantic, takes the lead with Scandinavia iu the same industry. Now Britain has not these forests which are so necessary, but imports the pulp and tremendous quantities of logs, which she manufactures into pulp. Britain is under a terrific disadvantage, yet only Canada and U.S.A. manufacture more newsprint than she does. Secondly, lie points out that the U.S.A. has adopted a policy of shutting down her own mills, and building new mills in Canada. Does “L.C.W.” mean that it pays the U.S.A., to close down home production to produce in another country V Surely not At page 210 of the Canadian Year Book, 1932, will be found the statement that the U.S.A. takes the whole of Canada’s exports of pulpwood, and 84 per cent of her pulp and paper exports. Of course the real reason for the closing down of these U.S.A. mills is because they had cut out their timber concessions, and as you cannot shift a pulp-mill, they found it paid them better to close, altogether rather than pay increasingly large haulage charges. Out of less than 100 such mills in the U.S.A. over seventy have closed down in the last twenty years. A further point is that approximately 90 per cent of the remaining forests of Canada are State-owned, and the Government will only grant timber cutting rights on condition that 75 per cent of the pulp-wood cut is manufactured in Canada. COST OF MACHINERY

I cannot make out where “I.C.W.’s” figures for the cost of machinery come from. Does “L.C.W.” think that all pulp machinery is made in .England? Most of the machinery used in Canadian mills is made in Canada, and the cost is less than half of what is quoted in the article. Again quoting tlio Canadian Year Book, there were 109 pulp and paper mills operating in Canada in 1930, with a total capital of (144,000,000 dollars, which averages out at a little over one million pounds per company. This capital is expended in purchasing timber cutting leases, water rights, constructing waterways (sometimes a pulp mill has to construct hundreds of miles of canals), purchasing coal and lime deposits, erecting power plants as well as the actual mill construction. In milling man-made forests in New Zealand, a good half of this expenditure will not be necessary. Regarding the market for our exports, the principal countries of tho world, including the exporting countries, import annually about £400,000,000 worth of pulpwood, pulp and paper, and every country with softwood forests of any pretensions at all has established pulping and kindred industries. In many cases these industries have enabled countries to face the present economic conditions more placidly than we have been able to do here. Everything we export has to meet with world competition, and we have to send our produce thousands of miles further to markets than our competitors, with millions of pounds invested in cold storage facilities, and have been able to hold our own pretty well. We find that Japan in 1913 exported but 300 tons of newsprint, but in 1930 exported 70,000 tons and actually produced 285,000 tons. Switzerland, the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia, exported no newsprint at all twenty years ago and yet to-day have fairly large exports. With low ocsts of production heavily in our favour, we should find competition much easier to meet than is the case with our butter, meat, wool or cheese.

“STAGGERING FIGURES” With reference to the Newfoundland plant of six units and two and a half million acres of timber limits, “L.C.W.” says that the colossal nature of the undertaking would stagger New Zealanders, but liis own colossal figures must have staggered “L.C.W.”. Those 2.500,000 acres would represent timber on not more than 100,000 acres of pine plantations in New Zealand. Contrary to the assertion of “L.C.W.” practically all the materials used in th e manufacture of pulp are found in New Zealand and will not have to be imported. The reference to the mill making kraft paper in New Zealand conveys the wrong impression, as no paper for wrapping purposes made from rags, sackings, etc could possibly compete with paper made from wood. This lias long since been found out in other countries, and practically none is now made by this process in Canada. Another correspondent writing in support of “L.C.W’s” article complains of the long hours lie had to work in a pulp mill —73 hours a week, where the best paid men received barely £2 per week wages, and the mill never paid a dividend in ten years. Well, it must have been a long time ago and have been a pretty dud mill. According to the “Canadian Trade Journal” for 1932, 33,584 workers were employed permanently in the pulp and paper mills receiving over 50,000,000 dollars in wages, or an average of £3OO annually per man. The 44-hour week is the average shift, and I venture to state that thousands of unemployed New Zealanders would be eager for such work. The “Canadian Year Book” shows u further 97,000 men engaged part time in the forests in lumbering and logging (only certain periods of the year being suitable for this work in that climate) and they received another 80,000,000 dollars wages, or about £IOO per men per season.