THE TIMBER INDUSTRY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13963, 24 July 1907, Page 4

THE TIMBER INDUSTRY.

Not Hie least interesting or important of the reports issued this year by the Department of Lands is that dealing with the timber industry of the colony. Although it is to a large extent made up of statistics ancl descriptions of sawmills there is some valuable introductory information and comment from the Ilrider-socretaly of Lands. A similar j'oport, winch wsis presented to Parliament in 1900, embodied the first attempt made to show the exact state of the industry, but this year's report is more complete and up to date, and must 1)6 proportionately more valuable. We are all aware of the fact that the bountiful supply of fine timber with which Nature Ims clothed so mucli of the surface of this land is diminishing rapidly under tile onslaught of Saw and axe, and most people have a vague idea that someone is to blame for the prodigality with which our forests are being effaced, without regard for the future. It does not convey very much information to the average citizen to be told that there are at present in the colony 411 sawmills, employing 7139 hands, and having a total output last year of 432 million superficial feet of timber; but there is something very tangible about an assurance from the UnderSecretary of Lands that the timber supplies in New Zealand are rapidly diminishing both in , quantity and quality. The report informs us that 36,000 million superficial feet now represent the total amount of milling timber left in the various district?, and it is fairly definite as to the period that may be expected to elapse before this is exhausted. In this connection we find this important pronouncement: "It must be home in mind that a very large proportion of the remaining timber, though suitable for milling purposes, is not readily available owing- to difficulty of communication and the expense of cutting and conveying the same to the centres where it is required. Other causes such as smallness of areas containing milling timber and the consequent unremunerativo working of the same, waste of timber in cutting and milling operation. l -, destruction of forests by bush fires and clearing land for settlement, and the necessity of preserving certain forests for climatic, Water supply, land protection, and scehic purposes, also tend to limit the quantity of timber available for milling requirements, and it appears certain that the supply is not likely to

last? beyond the seventy years estimated I in 1905, and will possibly fall short of this period to a considerable extent." This means that- perhaps in a couple of generations New Zealand will have outgrown her independence in the matter of her timber supply miles present conditions are radically altered. However, the Under-seoretary of Lands indicates fairly the two skies of the question here involved when, against trade exigencies and the argument that the removal of timbeb opens up land for settlement and assists the work of colonisation, ho places the fact that it is essential to keep in mind l the great lessons of past- ages mid to take precautious lest New Zealand be overtaken by a fate similar to that which has befallen so many other nourishing countries in tho world. Tho destructive results following upon tho indiscriminate clearing of forest lands, particularly at the sources of streams and along their banks are, as we are reminded, only too well known, ana hardly a country in the world has escaped the inevitable consequences of the disappearance of indigenous forests. As a consequence schools of forestry aud systematic afforestation are now a feature of modem State government. New Zealand, we arc told, has so far only experienced the injurious effects of forest doMKlatiou in a lesser'degree,' but already -the more disastrous nature of the floods has been noticed, examples in point being the great floods of Easter, 1897,' in liawke's Bay and Rangititei, aud the Auckland and Wnikato floods of last January. The story of the denudation. of the forest lands of New Zealand is not at all pleasant reading, and suggests a policy of suicidal tendencies. Admittedly, however, it is incumbent on the State to guard the interests of the community in connection, and we hope that tho obtaining of so complete a report on the timber industry as that to which we have been referring will herald further serious consideration of ways and means and more energetic measures in that direction. The Government has, as is generally known, been working more or less systematically with a view to supplement the resources of our native forests, and the efforts of the reafforestation branch of this Department have, according to the Tinder-secretary of Lands, already made a perceptible difference in the quantity of timber trees that will be availablo for milling operations in some twenty years' time and onwards. It is to be hoped that the Department will not rest satisfied until' something much greater than " a perceptible difference" has been achieved. The report, it is true, makes manifest the increased demand that has arisen for such Ne'v Zealand timbers as rimu (red pino), kahikatea (white pine), and matai (black pine), but there is little hope in the future for the finest of New Zealand timber trees, the kauri, for special reference is made to tho very rapid destruction of the native forests in the north, which, if continuing at the present rate, will cause a cessation of tlio sawmilling industry in that part of the colony within some fifteen years. Under nil the circumstances, it is surely a matter for regret that New Zealand should go on exporting annually timber to the value of over a quarter of a million sterling, or about a sixth of the total annual output.