Mr Walter Diamond, yard foreman at the Taringamotu Mill of the Puketapu Incorporation. His main interest outside working hours is deerstalking with bow and arrows. He was the founder of the Taumarunui Branch of the N.Z. Deerstalkers Association, of which he is still an eRecutive member. (Photograph: P. A. Blank) Hoani Te Heuheu died within a fortnight of this visit. During the tangi the subject of the timber incorporation was raised again. Recalling what Hoani had said on his deathbed, Pei Jones, Paterika Hura and Te Ngaronui Jones set out on a countryside tour to get the written consents of the owners of the majority of the shares. The government's reaction to this move was not exactly one of wild delight. There had been too many such ventures before which had ended in financial disaster and great loss to the Maori beneficiaries. The government soon came with what seemed then a reasonable offer for the Maoriowned timber in that district. Mr Skinner, the Minister of Forests, made a personal visit to Waihi, the centre of Tuwharetoa, in 1945, offering £100,000 as deposit and royalties of 6/- per 100 H.D. for totara and 3/- for other species. The offer made, the Ministerial party withdrew. A meeting of owners was then held which rejected the government's offer. The Minister of Forests accepted the rejection with good grace and wished the incorporation well. Shortly afterwards, Judge Dykes made a Maori Land Court order establishing the incorporation.

FIGHTING COMPETITION Puketapu soon discovered that its greatest difficulty would not be the cutting or carting but the marketing of the timber. Once large stock piles had been established, sawmillers began to object to the log prices and standards of grading were made very stringent. Deliveries of Puketapu logs were curtailed and sales outlets became restricted. The battle had begun. The incorporation's answer was to build a railway siding to rail the logs to selling points outside Taumarunui, but it turned out even that did not solve the problem, for sawmillers in other districts created the same difficulties. It was for this reason that the Puketapu Incorporation entered the field of sawmilling. By running their own mills the owners could sell direct to the public. The fifties were a tricky period for all millers of native timber. Pinus radiata, during this period,