DEAL IN TIMBER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 813, 6 November 1929, Page 6

DEAL IN TIMBER

ECHO OF DR. RAYNER’S TRANSACTIONS QUESTIONS IN HOUSE THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter WELLINGTON, Tuesday. An echo of Dr. F. J. Rayner’s dealings with the State was heard in the House of Representatives today when they formed the subject of a return, laid on the table at the request ot JNlr. T. W. McDonald (Wairarapa). Mr. McDonald asked for a return showing the total loss incurred in the sawmflling industry carried on by the Railway Department under the agreement with Dr. Rayner for the timber right's and royalties in connection with the Piha and Anawhata timber areas. The reply was as follows: —“The difference between the costs of producing timber from the Piha and A-na-whata areas and the rates at which the timber was issued to the various consuming branches of the department was in the total approximately £24,000. It would not be correct, therefore, to characterise this as a loss. The department was forced to go into the production of kauri timber owing to its inability to get supplies from other sources. If it had been able to obtain such supplies and had paid the prices then ruling the cost would have been increased by more than the figure above mentioned. In the ordinary fixation of the issue rates it was aimed to do no more than cover the actual cost of production. Unforeseen conditions, however, very largely arising out of the war, caused an increase in these production costs, and it was not until some 10,000,000 ft. of kauri timber had been milled that the issue rates were revised.”

Mr. McDonald then asked for the amount by which the loss he referred to has been credited, and therefore apparently reduced, by increasing the rates at which timber was previously transferred from time to timfe from Piha mill stock to general store stock in the different centres of the Dominion.

The reply was that the debit balance of £24,000 was distributed as follows: Written off against reserve profit accounts at Kakahi and Mamaku sawmills, £.17,100; transferred to kauri stocks in hand by increasing stock values and debiting other branches which had utilised the output of the Piha sawmill at too low issue prices, £6,900. Mr. McDonald also asked for an enumeration of the various sums paid by the State to Dr. Rayner and Mrs. Hoyes respectively, or their agents, for the purchase of land, and as royalties on timbers. The reply given was that no land was purchased by the Railway Department from Dr. Rayner. The total amount paid to Dr. Rayner and his wife as owners of the standing timber purchased by the department for royalty on kauri and other timbers felled on the Piha and Anawhata areas over the milling period of eight years, from April 1, 1913, to March 31, 1921, was £104,488. The total amount paid to Mrs. E. V. Hoyes for the purchase of the freehold of the Maroa and Kirihono milling areas in the Taupo district with timber standing thereon was £32,500. These .areas were of a total acreage of 1,552.