KAURI GUM INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21221, 29 June 1932, Page 9

KAURI GUM INDUSTRY.

PLIGHT OF THE WORKERS.

FOLLY OF OVER-PRODUCTION.

EMPLOYMENT ELSEWHERE.

The suggestion that in view of thft large stocks of kauri gum now held in store and the limited demand for this commodity, steps should be taken to reduce production until the demand increases, is made by Mr. Mark Hoggard, of Waiharara, North Auckland, in a com-* munication to tile Hebald; "A circular from the Kauri Gum Control Board says that so far as the board's brokerage department goes," states Mr. Hoggard, -"business in any grade of Rum is almost at a standstill and that advances to - diggers in future will be only 50 per cent, of the estimated value of the gum at the time tho advance is made. The control board has now been informed by the Unemployment Board that no further funds will be made available to the control board for advances on gum."

After stating that ha estimates the amount of gum already awaiting a market at approximately 10,000 tons, Mr. Hoggard states that over the first four months of the present yerr the exports averaged about 190 tons a month and that the demand appears to be decreasing. The Dominion, therefore, had sufficient

gum on hand, without taking into account gum that would be produced in the interval, to supply tho present demand for about five years to come. There was, therefore, but one hopo for the industry in the immediate future, as far as the producers wcro concerned, and that was to get as many men as possible away from the production of gum. Land settlement for those who were willing to take up land, and relief work, if only two or thre# days, a week, for others, was the only hope of improving the lot of the gumdigger.

"It is fortunate that the Unemployment Board has discontinued advances to tlxe" Kauri Gum Conlvol Board. ' If the control board cannot stand on its own feet by its sales of gum as brokers," added Mr. Hoggard, "then the industry will be better off without it. It would be nice to think of a boom in kauri gum in the near future, but with our present accumulated stocks and the disturbed, condition of the oversea markets it is useless for the producers to bury their heads in heaps of gum like so many ostriches while they wait for something to turn up. Our present production exceeds the exports by at least 100 tons a month, so why continue to produce it?"