TIMBER INDUSTRY

Southland Times, Issue 20220, 4 July 1927, Page 6

TIMBER INDUSTRY

THE AMERICAN VIEW. TARIFFS ESSENTIAL TO PRODUCTION. SLOGAN: “NO VISION, NO WOODS.” In view of the strong efforts that are likely to be made in the near future to impose higher protective tariffs in New Zealand timebr, an article which appearedd under the heading of “Forestry and Protection” in the March issue of The Timberman will be read with interest in the Dominion. The interest is derived principally from the fact that the article shows how the Americans have set about the fostering and protection of their timber industry. The Timberman is one of the largest publications on the Pacific Coast and as such may be deemed an authority on all the questions pertaining to the industry. Referring to Dr Schenck, founder and Director of the Biltmore Forest School, the first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, The Timberman says, inter alia: “Dr Schneck is a very strong advocate of protective tariffs for the benefit of American forestry. What is the sense of raising oak in the East as long as Japan can supply us as it does to-day with oak and with a substitute for oak is his question. “A wealthy New Yorker told me the other day” he said “that he had an option on several hundred acres of pine land in Mexico. Realising that the exhaustion of the southern pine areas is within sight, he expressed great confidence in the wisdom of such investments. Do you know what my reply was to this man when he asked for my opinion? I told him to go to Hongkong with his Mexican investments and I expressed the hope that a high tariff would protect the American forests of the future against any possible invasion of the foreign products. Look at old England. England has never, until the World War came, seen her way clear towards raising timber inland. Lumber and mine props could and can be obtained in the English markets more cheaply from Scandinavia than they can be raised in England. As a consequence, in spite of its density of population, oneeighth of England lies barren and unproductive.

“ ‘Forestry is an jnfant industry. Every infant industry, during its infantile years, requires the particular protection of a farsighted Government. Where there is no vision the woods will perish, if not the people.’ “From Dr Schenck’s viewpoint which, due to his experience and training is rather broad, there is no hope for American commercial forestry unless the present cut-throat competition on the lumber market can be stopped; unless the future of forestry investments is safeguarded by a high tariff.”