THE PRICE OF TIMBER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2856, 9 December 1908, Page 36

THE PRICE OF TIMBER.

ANOTHER DEPUTATION TO THE PRIME MINISTER. {FitOSf OUB OWK CoHBSSPOKDENr.) WELLINGTON, December 6. The statement made by the recent deputation of sawmillers to the Prime Minister that the price of timber had not been increased by more than Is per 100 ft during the past 'seven or eight years is denied by the Wellington timber merchant*. A leading timber merchant informed me yesterday that he had gone carefully into this matter, and he finds that there has been an average increase during the past seven and a-half years of 4s per 100 ft. On some lines there has been an advance of 6s per 100 ft. The sawniillers say that they have had during the recent bad times -to stand the brunt of the whole loss through bad debts, but my informant says that while the millers have not lost £100 in bad debts from the merchants the latter in Wellington alone during the past six months have lost between £5000 and £6000.

Tlie fact that some of the mills are now closing down lie regaids as a bit of bluff, becau&e it is, lie save, the usual thing to close the mills for some weeks at the time of Christmas and the New Year holidays. He points out that the cry for a heavier duty on Oregon pine should not for one moment be listened to. The present duty of 2s is ample, and if this is increasedit will simply mean that the general public will have to pay more for their houses, and that rents will be maintained at a higher figure. Instead of increasing the cost of building material, the tendency should be in the direction of cheapening it. Oregon pine is suited for many purposes in connection with building, and it lias the merit that it is proof against the ravages of the destructive borer. When stained " a dark colour it makes most artistic doors and mantelpieces, and altogether it is eminently desirable to have such a timber

imported into the Dominion at as reasonable a cost as possible.

A deputation of timber merchants will wait on tlie Prime Minister to-morrow to put the other side of the question before him. In the meantime the sawmillers are very insistent and persistent, and the Prime Minister is being deluged with telegrams urging him to grant them further protection.