THE KAURI COMPANY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9129, 10 August 1888, Page 5

THE KAURI COMPANY.

A WELLINGTON OPINION. [BY TELEUKAFH. —SPECIAL COKItKSPONDENT.] Wellington, Thursday. The Post has a leading article to-night on the operations of the Kauri Company. I give a quotation, as showing the direction of its criticism:—"There is, we believe, much rejoicing in the Northern province over the good prices which local owners of kauri land have received from the new company : but it may fairly be questioned whether the temporary benefits so derived may not have to be rather dearly paid for hereafter. It is, we think, very doubtful whether the operations of this great company will prove ultimately or permanently beneficial to Auckland or to the colony. The extent of kauri timber land is, unfortunately, very limited, and there is no young timber growing to replace that so extensively cut down. A few years will bring the supply to a close. In one sense the company may be said to be living on its capital. The more business it does the quicker the practical termination of its operations approaches. The company have every inducement to push on the working out of its forests as quickly as possible. It has to pay a large guaranteed interest to the shareholders for a series of years, and it must do an extensive trade to earn this. For the first few years the destruction of kauri forests will be forced to the utmost. The headquarters of the company being in Melbourne, its interest:-; lie in iretting as much work as possible done there instead of in New Zealand, so that we may naturally expect to find that the raw material, the baulk timber only, will be exported to be worked up in Melbourne, instead of in Auckland. This of itself will be a serious blow to the latter place, as hitherto it has worked up a large quantity of kauri in doors, sashes, etc., for export. Now the manufacture will almost certainly be confined to supplying the New Zealand demand. It is problematical whether the new company will, however extensive its export.-? of baulk timber may be, employ as many hands in this colony as have hitherto been employed in connection with the timber industry in one form or another. The wholesale destruction of the kauri forests which is likely to go on is not without importance from a climatic point of view. The climate cannot fail to be injuriously affected by the denudation of its forest mantle. The position also has? to be faced of what is New Zealand to do for timber for home use when all its kauri is exhausted by export to Australia? The answer is plain : this colony will, for many purposes, have to import timber either from the Baltic or from Canada. The wisdom of hastening the arrival of this time by permitting the unlimited export of kauri timber in any form, may well be doubted. It is discounting very heavily the future of the colony at large for profits which a few who participate may make from tho exportation in the present. We shall not be at all surprised if the extent of the operations of the kauri monopoly now established soon forces on the attention of the Government the necessity for legislative interference to check or restrict the trade, cither by the imposition of an export duty, or by the absolute limitation of the rate of exportation. The colony is bound, in self-protection, to retard as long as possible the exhaustion of its all too small extent of kauri forest."