Australian-New Zealand Tariff Reciprocity.

Progress, Volume XVIII, Issue 1, 1 September 1922, Page 18

Australian-New Zealand Tariff Reciprocity.

Australian timber merchants and importers feel that the removal of the duty on white pine will benefit the trade and result before long in the lowering of the price of butter boxes and kitchen tables, states Hardware and Machinery. Timbers such as New Zealand white pine, kauri, and rimu have to be imported into Australia for manufacturing purposes whether subject to duty or otherwise. As to iron and steel, the placing of rolled materials on the British preferential level will give Australian manufacturers a better chance of competing in New Zealand with those of the Mother Country. ~ ♦ There has been a long controversy on the question of the regulation of heights of buildings for London. The Committee appointed by the Council of the Royal Institute of British Architects produced a report in favour of raising the general height allowed by the London County Council, which at present stands at 80 feet to 120 feet for the city (and 150 feet in certain other cases). At present the County Council has powers to permit higher buildings on certain sites, which powers it exercises with comparative frequency; but without owners of property being able to ascertain beforehand with any degree of certainty. * * # One of the noted events in Sydney (N.S.W.) at the present time in the building world is the activity with which banks are competing to build the largest and the grandest structure. Scheme after scheme is either "on the boards," just commenced, or just finished. * * * The history of building in every country establishes the fact that natural building materials are the first to be used, but supplies of stone and timber are-necessarily limited and so as each country ages, -they become scarcer and therefore more expensive, and cheaper manufactured articles as brick and concrete, have to replace them.