OREGON MENACE

Southland Times, Issue 20147, 6 April 1927, Page 15

OREGON MENACE

HOPE ON THE HORIZON. PRICE-CUTTERS MAY GO. GOOD NEWS FOR N.Z. MILLERS. New Zealand sawmillers living under the shadow of the menace of cheaper Oregon pine, which is competing so seriously with our own timbers, will be interested in some news brought by Mr E. D. Pike, the wellknown Sydney sawmiller, who, with Mrs Pike is now on board the Niagara completing a most enjoyable tour of the world byway of the East, Europe and America, states the Auckland Star. While he was in San Francisco his inquiries led him to the conclusion that negotiations were in progress for the absorption of some of the smaller “outfits” that were instrumental in the price cutting that had resulted in sending so much of this cheap timber to New Zealand and Australia. “The idea is for the big mills to buy up these smaller men. There is no doubt they are not making anything out of the trade, and once these small mills, the price-cutters, are out of action, I think it is a certainty that the prices will see an advance. You can see that your New Zealand sawmillers are vitally interested in this problem of the Oregon pine, and the amalgamations I speak of will undoubtedly affect the present situation. There is no doubt we cannot compete with the enormous output of these American mills, and when price-cutting is resorted to the position becomes so much worse. I think it practically certain that you will see an advance in the export price of Oregon before long.” Although Mr Pike’s firm has been sending a certain amount of hardwood to San Francisco for a number of years, he states that the trade between Australia and America must necessarily be very limited. Alt that America would take was some timber for special jobs. Incidentally Mr Pike mentioned that on this trip he met a man with whom he had been doing business for thirty years. After having corresponded for all those years, and done a large amount of business, the meeting was naturally interesting to both of them. Although he has been in Sydney for a good while now, Mr Pike is really a New Zealander. He comes from Mauku, near Pukekohe. His firm dose a large business

in hardwood poles, and has supplied scores of thousands of the ones that carry the overhead wires of the Auckland Electric Power Board’s system.