TIMBER IMPORTS

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1785, 22 July 1926, Page 5

TIMBER IMPORTS

SOME (SIGNIFICANT FIGURES. (By Telegraph. Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. Said by sawmillers to be: the worst slump in the timber industry on the West Coast spnce 1905, the conditions ruling at present give rise to the most pessimistic predictions, some millers going so far as to state the sound of the saw is likely to cease altogether in the West Coast bush unless matters speedily change for the better. The competition of foreign timber resulting in the falling-off of orders, particularly from Australia, for white pine, and increased royalties imposed by the Forestry Department are said to be some of the main causes to the slump, while alleged undercutting among Canterbury merchants is not improving the situation. One miller states that most of the trouble is caused by the competition of imported timber from America. For the three months ended March, 1926, the importations of cedar totalled 1.932,000 super feet, ate against 905,000 feet for the corresponding period of 1925. The importations of dressed spruce, Baltic, and other timbers increased from 374,000 super feet for the same three months in 1925 to 2,613,000 feet for the three months ended March 1926.