THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1886.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7796, 16 November 1886, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1886.

No exhibits forwarded from the colonies attracted more attention at the great show in Kensington, just closed, than the samples of timber. There is great anxiety of late years in England over the prospects of the timber supply. With a view to the future of the trade the Government, half-a-dozen years ago, had an official inquiry made into the resources of the various colonies in this way, and the returns were laid before Parliament. Last year again the subject was under Government consideration, and a series of reports were issued from the Foreign Office in Downing-street, to which we referred at the time. The Exhibition has now made the Home public aware of the great variety of fine woods, fit for industrial requirements, which the forests of the Australasian colonies contain. Three of them had been previously known to fame at the other side of the namely, the kauri of New Zealand, the jarrah wood of West Australia, and the cedar which the district of the Clarence River in New South Wales still furnishes. And these three colonies are now the chief timber exporters ou' here, although in our particular case other woods besides kaari, largely compose- the shipments. We find that last year New Zealand headed the list to the value e p £152,000 ; West Australia came next, to the amount of £104,000 and such shipments from New South Wales still reached £100,000. Tasmania, whose magnificent forests no great while back appeared inexhaustible, has quite dropped to the rear. We can now develop more than a moderate trade in this way with British ports. They will take all the timber we like to send them, and the prices must needs continue to rise.

England once depended on her own woods for her shipbuilding and the domestic industries. In the time of our grandfathers the local woodlands still supplied her dockyards. But the forests are gone, and the industries have vastly multiplied. It is calculated there are at present in Europe 661,000,000 acres of forest, of which 470,000,000 are in Russia, while within the United Kingdom there are little over 2,000,000 acres. In Germany, one of the best wooded countries there, an eminent authority, Engel, calculates that the price of timber since 1830 has increased 300 per cent,, and in Russia during the eight years preceding 1882 the price of timber doubled. Everywhere the consumption rapidly progresses. In America the United States now import from neighbouring Canada. We see how it is that England is so anxious that her colonies should enlarge their timber supply, and why the price of the article must needs continue to rise. Iron is now used for the construction of ships as well as wood, but on the other hand the number of vessels has enormously multiplied. Since the introduction and extension of railways, immense quantities are consumed in that service alone, and so, too, for mining and the many manufactures that require forest products. Altogether England, it seems, imports annually timber and other sylvan materials to the valuo o£ .020,000,000 sterling. Ah has been said on high authority, not only her industrial but political position would be interfered with by any failure or grave deficiency of so necessary a supply. And she is only the biggest of the importers. The trade in timber increases all over the globe. Countries which once possessed a superabundance have now to get it from abroad ; and as Canada ships this produce to the wharves of Chicago and New York, so does New Zealand to those of Melbourne and Sydney. It is well to have the bird that lays the golden eggs. Could we not contrive means to keep it alive ? Mr. Ballance, who is an earnest and practical statesman, who has done good service in each of the three departments over which he presides, has in his land management taken up the work of plantation with characteristic energy; and he is not likely to limit his ararrangements to planting, for, at the rate the woods are disappearing, planting alone would not suffice. Indeed, if we cannot preserve State forests, a suitable amount of the standing woods, how could we preserve plantations either, unless on an infinitesimal scale ? Planting is a necessary adjunct to the preservation of' a sufficient share of what we already possess, if the sylvan requirements of the colony are to be permanently provided for. Every year our woods disappear with an accelerated speed. With increasing population the local demand for timber increases. We have a large timber export, as New ■ Zealand is one of the last of ese colonies which have still article to trade in, aijj fcsh temptations to extend,. trade have just been preprinted. Then, besides all this cutting down of forest for useful purposes, they are still more extensively swept away by bush fires, set going sometimes through accident, sometimes design. It is, of course, difficult to preserve State forests in a new country but, unless we contrive means to do so, New Zealand must make up her mind to be soon rid of her woods, and experience the disastrous consequences. We trust to Mr. Ballance, earnest and resolute in what he goes about, to put his shoulder to this great work. In the task of plantation, under the superintendence of Mr. Kirk, there is fine opportunity, sure to be availed of, for widely introducing important foreign trees. For example, there is the cork tree, which, besides being a stately umbrageous ornament of the woodland, yields a valuable article of commerce. There is the Borneo kauri, fast-growing, and producing a valuable gum, and which in the last session was recommended by Sir George Grey— good authority on acclimatisation— also the Oalifornian redwood, which he described as not requiring fencinga great consideration. In Canada they have the pleasant custom of sometimes engaging school children by way of amusement or half-holiday in planting the grounds belonging to the schoolhouse; and we see by the country journals the practice has been already, on a couple of occasions, introduced here. It is to be commended, as, besides beautifying their surroundings, it impresses on the children a sense of the importance of trees, of whose meaning and various service there is too little popular perception in aDy country.