AUSTRALIAN TIMBER

Southland Times, Issue 19458, 23 January 1925, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN TIMBER

DECEASED PRODUCTION. KEEN OVERSEA COMPETITION. (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright). (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) MELBOURNE, January 22. In giving evidence before the Tariff Board, which is investigating requests that the duty on timber imported into Australia should be increased, Mr Moore (secretary of the Australian Timber Tariff Protection Executive) said that in 1913 the quantity of timber produced in Australia was 683,089,000 super feet, but in 1922 the quantity was only 587,441,000 super feet. The decreased production was due to the keep oversea competition, in consequence of which a number of mills had gone out of operation. Australian hardwood timbers had, for the same reason, been reduced in price from 21s to 19s per hundred super feet. Overseas competitors had many advantages. In most of the foreign producing countries logs were transported by floating them down river, and water was available as power for the mills. Practically all the timber in Australia had to be transported by rail or boat. Comparing the difference in labour conditions, Mr Moore said that the actual wage in the lumber industry in Canada was 25s per week or 58 hours; in the United States it was 40s 6d for a week of 57| hours, and in Sweden it was 7s 7d a day, while in Australia the minimum was 83s for a week of 48 hours.