NEW ZEALAND TIMBERS AT HOME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7921, 13 April 1887, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND TIMBERS AT HOME.

. <, REPORT OF THE AGENT-GENERAL. LBV TELEGRAPH.—PRK3S ASSOCIATION.] Wellington, Tuesday. Sin J. Vogkl has received the following letter from the Agent-General, dated London, 19th February :—" I received by last mail your letter of 31st December, relating to Now Zealand timbers, and I acknowledged receipt of your telegram of the 22nd of that month, in a letter to the Premier dated the 29th, in reply to one I had just received on the same subject from him. You will have received soon after you wrote my letter of the 6th of December, giving a very discouraging account of the shipment of kauri that came in the Haloione, and I am sorry to say I can give no better report now. It is not that half of the colonial woods is without due appreciation here ; on the contrary, muoh interest of a scientific kind is felt in the matter. I annex a paper read by Mr. Ransom before the Society of Arts a few nights ago, in which our kauri, rimu, and Blaok pine were described, and it is certain, as the paper says, that if a demand were to arise for kauri, the ruinous ;price of 3j per cubic foot, at which the last cargo was sold, would not long be maintained. But the truth is that this demand does not exist, and I confess I do not see what the Government can themselves do to create it. The inquiries . have always come back to tbie point, that it ie the producer in New Zealand and not the timber merchant here in whose hands the creation of the trade really lies. Tho producer must send his woods in sufficient quantity and variety to the market, for the dealer here will never send for them himself on speculation. Nothing has brought out the general application of this commercial canon more clearly than the trade reports which Her Majesty's consuls are sending home from foreign countries under Lord Rosebery's instructions. At every place the same story turns up. Foreigners are beating Englishmen out of one market after another, simply because they send their wares, or samples of their wares, to markets hitherto occupied by English traders, and tempt buyers into new channels by lowness of prices, by adaptability to wants, and by big varibty of choice. I am doubtful whether New Zealand woods possessing these requisites can be sent here in quantities that are absolutely necessary to create a profitable trade, but 1 have not any doubt that if this can be done at all, it can only be done by private enterprise, and Government support would really be of very little avail."