THE OLD TIMES AND THE NEW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14809, 12 October 1911, Page 9

THE OLD TIMES AND THE NEW.

SAWMILLING INDUSTRY,

The sawmiller of to-day (writes our Taihape - correspondent) is* a lucky individual compared with the men who followed the same line of business some years ago. Prices, market, means of transit, and improved appliances are all in favour of present-day millers. The sawmillers of the old echool-7-the'' men who pioneered the industry >in New Zealand—had a strenuous battle to fight. They lived in the days when brute strength and a capacity for strenuous toil were deemed a

man's best characteristics; they worked and perspired side-by-side with their own men; and a stranger entering the mill would hardly know which was the " boss" and which the " slabby." Profits were email in those days, and - the mill-owner who did not work in his own mill was a very rare individual; those who didn't do so generally became bankrupts. Even loghaulers were non-existent, and the Jogs had to be lolled from the stump to the tramline. Those acquainted with up-to-date sawmills can realise what a tremendous handicap the absence of a log-hauler would be to a modern mill. There was no such thing as " return-feed gear" on the breast benches, and even the* " liveroller" feed gear was . non-existent. The timber had to be fed to the saws over wooden rollers, which " rolled" only when the benchman and tailor-out exerted themselves. Sometimes a handleman was employed, his duties being to turn a handle attached to the spindle of the roller. The breaking down was done in this way, travelling benches and cone feed gear, etc., being undreamt of. True, the benches travelled,' but only at the rate a snail may be said ito travel, as the speed was regulated by a man's ability to wind a bench holding a 4ft log. A deep cut was made in a painfully slow manner by this means. All the other gear used in the old mills was of a proportionately primitive kind, but the capacity for work really existed then, and, somehow or other, the work paid sufficiently to keep a large number of men in employment (including the boss). When comparisons of the timber prices ruling then and now are made, it is often urged that the wages were lower some years ago; but it is forgotten that the old-time miller employed a larger number of men per ,1000 ft of timber milled than is the case at present. Timber production is cheaper now than it 'jver was before, yet the prices are considerably higher.