COUNTRY NOTES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7048, 9 February 1910, Page 2

COUNTRY NOTES

A GLUT IN TIMBER. TROUBLES OF THE SAWMILLERS RAIL FREIGHTS TOO HIGH. (By Our Travelling Reporter.) Judging by the large quantities of timber’ that are being turned out by the mills in the King Country one would naturally suppose that the trade was booming, and that there was a keen demand for timber. But such is not the oo.se, for, with the exception of a tew “house-orders,” there is practically no demand for ber, and, in so far as the King Country is concerned, there is a decided slump in the market. Most of the mills have been working full time since the winter, and largo quantities of timber, in two or three instances to tile value of £20,000, have been cut and stacked at the mills in anticipation of big orders coming forward after the Now Year. But, so tar, in spite of the revival in the building trade throughout the Dominion, the big orders have failed to materialise, and several millers not caring to carry too heavy, stocks of timber and run the risk of fire,, are contemplating a cessation of operations, for the present at least, while others are continuing in hopes of the trade taking a turn for the bettor. SLUMP NOT GENERAL. A Bangataua miller, speaking of the sawmilling industry and its prospects, said that the present slump was not general, but was confined to the King Country only. The reports from other districts wont to show that the trade, though not actually booming, was fairly brisk. In his opinion, tiro present depression in the King Country was duo solely to the high rates charged by the Railway Department for the transportation of timber. 'The present railway tariff, which works out at about four shillings per hundred feet between Ohakune and "Wellington, makes it impossible, for King Country millers to compete on anything like equal terms for the metropolitan trade with the West Coast millets, who, after paying freight and wharfage at the West Coast ports and again at Wellington, have a narrow margin to their advantage. Another factor, and . one that to , a great extent accounts for the huge stacks of timber that are to be seen at almost every mill, is that merchants in the city are not carrying large stocks, but purchase from the mills quantities sufficient for the time being only. In fact, very few of them are merchants in the truest sense of tho term, but are merely brokers acting as agents between tho saw-millers and • builders, thus passing all risk of bad debts, "together with the cost of sorting .and making the timber up into builders’ jots, on' to the millers.

THE PIONEERS OF SETTLBM ENT. It would be hard to estimate just to w-hat extent the saw-milling industry has assisted in tbe development of the country. But one tiling is certain, that were it not for the enterprise of sawmillers such towns as Dannevirke, Pahiaitua, Inglewood, and a host of other thriving centres, world jiot be in existence to-day, and the prosperous fertile,districts of Southern Hawke’s Bay, Taranaki, and a large portion of. the. Manawatu w-ould still be covered with standing hush. Sawmillers are tho pioneers of settlement. They clear the land, make roads, and otherwise prepare tho way for farmers. With the exception of the West Coast and o 'portion of the Auckland province, all the bush lands in the Dominion are rich and fertile, and suitable for either dairying or graingrowing. LAND FOR SETTLEMENT. There are many thousands of acres of land in and around Ohakune and Rnngataua, which, if stripped of tbe bush, would hold their own in the matter of productivity w-ith any other land in the Dominion. In tho opinion of exports there is sufficient milling bush in tho King Country to keep all the mills there going for tho next fifteen or twenty years. That does not mean that settlement will be delayed till the end of that period. Far from it. Settlement follows close in the wake of the sawmills; as soon as one patch of bush is cut out stumping is commenced, and after that follows the plough; and the .small "towns and villages that spring mushroom-like tip around the-sawmills are supported by the farming community as. the mills pass beyond their influence. CHEAP 'FREIGHTS THE CURE. Many large fortunes have leen made out of the timber industry, but not by the millers themselves. They have lost fortunes in it; have given all their energies, time, and money to helping the industry along, and have received little or nothing from it. .Until the. Wellington market is . captured, there will bo no real life ;h the milling trade in tho King Country, and that can only be attained by reducing the railway rates on timber, thus permitting King Country timber competing on equal terms with timber from tho West Coast.