THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTH CROSS. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9130, 11 August 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTH CROSS. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888.

The Wellington people seem to take a fatherly interest in the kauri timber trade, an interest probably of the same kind which they take in the San Francisco service. The Post the other day returns to the subject, and suggests that the day may soon come when the Government shall have to restrict and regulate us generally. The supply of kauri is limited, and will, sooner or later, become exhausted, and that that time may be deferred as long as possible the Post speaks as follows :—" 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, either by the imposition of an export duty or by the absolute limitation of the rate of exportation." In all probability the rate at which our forests will be cut down under the new company will not be greater than it has been for several years past, under the twenty or thirty companies which have been absorbed. The chief difference will be that the article will be made to yield a profit, whereas for some time past each i company has been wasting money in management and parting with the ! timber at a loss. Better anything than j that, and there seemed no hope of I changing the condition of affairs,except I in some such way as has come to pass, j But as to Government interference, j with the view of extending the time during which we shall have the article, we do not see why an exception should be made in the case of kauri. Coal mines have been opened in various parts of New Zealand, and in certain cases it is clear that the seams will be worked out within a measurable time. And yet the money of the colony is donated in hundreds of thousands of pounds to facilitate and increase the export. There is no difference in principle that we can see. The Government lias never aided the export of kauri by a single farthing. Those people who talk as above quoted must also recollect that the kauri forests are absolutely private property, and aie quite beyond the reach of Parliament passing restrictive enactments. When the Parliament found it necessary, for the sake of the revenue, to suppress the whisky distilleries which had been in operation at l.Hmedin and Auckland, they simply had 10 buy them out, and if the Government interfered with proprietary rights in timber, they would have to face the same question.

As for injury to our climate by the cutting of the forest (about which the Post has a great deal to say), that can only result to a very small extent from the operations of timber companies. A kauri forest is almost always a forest in a forest, and the cutting of the kauri will not make the country bare. The destructive agency to our forests is fire, and the owners will do as much as possible to minimise that evil. We speak of tires caused by accident or by carelessness. Settlers taking up bush land burn large areas every year, and thoroughly clear the ground. Far more bush, useful for climatic reasons, is destroyed every year in this way than by the operations of timber companies. Why does the Post not propose that settlement in bush districts should be stopped ? That the Government could do, because it owns that land, large areas of which it parts with every year, and the very next step is to have all the bush cleared oft by lire. But suppose the Government were to stop the cutting of kauri, and to buy up the interest of all the present owners, would the loss be stopped ? In all probability it would be increased. Look at what happened to the Puhipuhi forest last summer. The Government bought that bush a year or two ago, and are supposed to be keeping it till all the other forests are cut out. And what happened last summer It was not conserved in the way that private forests are looked after, and a ver.v l»j-ge proportion was destroyed by

ft I fire, the ground being cleared of nil T" ; trees standing. We venture to say o | more timber was lost in the Put • | forest, owned by the Ooverniiif> nt 1' | summer, than the new company [it ' | for a considerable time all " n ,..' Cur ' 111 cjv t »r fi. n province. A timber company }, .• j men employed about a forest ca n i V,"" guard against tire than the' Gov' 1 "' r ment. It is safe to surmise that v^rnment. it is saie to surmise that if • Government persists in keeping pj;''" puhi in its own hands for many y fe there will be nothing of it left and '' the new timber company will have tnat the new timber company will have i lions of feet still to work on Jj" Puhipuhi lias disappeared. G O - r , Ul nient has been a conspicuous fai'y the management of everything it j taken in hand, and it had better l e - ** timber alone.