EXPORT DUTY ON BAULK TIMBER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8316, 24 July 1890, Page 3

EXPORT DUTY ON BAULK TIMBER.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—ln your leader of Saturday, so bitterly attacking Mr. Goldie and his action in the House in this matter, you forgot to mention that the people of New Zealand have given our kauri timber merchants a splendid monopoly in our internal timber trade, i.e., a protective tariff of '2s per hundred feet. It prevents any importation of American pine. Of the numerous vessels passing to the north of 2New Zealand from Paget Sound to Sydney and Melbourne, carrying about a hundred million feet per annum, not one of them can call in with a cargo of American pine, because of this monstrous tariff. Notwithstanding the American pine is superior to the kauri for doors and windows, we can have none of them because of this sop to our local industries. I believe in protection and the wisdom of tit© tariff directed against} th

importation of foreign timber, bub I am sure the people of this colony in giving the timber companies such a monopoly ought also in all fairness to have a say in the matter of exporting baulk. All that Mr. oldie asks is that this baulk should bo cut up where it grows. It is a most reasonable request. If the exporting companies think otherwise, then let them surrender the benefit accruing from the protective tariff on imported timber.—l am, &c. Peter Oliehant.