8

H.—so

you have mentioned. Our Year-book, which contains the information, is just about to be circulated. Mr. White : It is £41,000 according to last Year-book. Hon. Mr. Mills : The members of the Conference will be able to get a New Zealand Yearbook, and it will contain that with a great deal of other information. The Chairman : I would bring the Conference back to the consideration of the matter of the conservation of the forests. Mr. Bailey : I think that that could better be left to the Rangers. They would be the men that could report on the standing forests. The only resolution that we could come to would be that all forests anywhere adjacent to a railway should be conserved. The Rangers would be the men who could give in their reports. Mr. White : There is no chance of conserving kauri timber. If you attempt to conserve that you simply conserve it into a fire, unless you restrict the advance of settlement. Mr. Price : I take it it is the will of the meeting that all sawmilling blocks should be set aside and preserved for the benefit of the public generally. It appears to me that it is a very right thing to do. I wonder they have not adopted it years ago. There is no doubt there have been hundreds of thousands of acres of timber destroyed for no earthly reason whatever. So many of these heavily-timbered blocks have been felled, and after they have been felled the people have been starved out, and have had to leave them ; they have had to throw them up after spending two or three years of their time and lives. The Government should take the trouble to select these blocks for settlement. There are plenty of blocks with very little timber on them. If they were to put the settlers on those blocks there would be little to say about it; but they seem to have placed them down here and there for the purposes of close settlement, and on blocks where the timber was so thick that they could not stand. A man recently spoke to me about his nephew having a block of land, and he told me that you could travel right across the section without putting your foot to the land ; there was nothing but timber there. How is it possible for settlers to get on if they are put into a place like that ? The Chairman: I will move, "That this Conference is of opinion that it is not possible to save for any length of time bush —especially kauri bush—which is surrounded and encroached upon by ever-advancing settlement. That the timber which can and should be conserved is mostly in the hands of the Government, and should be, when sold, carefully guarded, and cut under judicious regulations." Mr. Chalmers : I will second that motion. The Chairman then put the motion, which was carried unanimously. It was resolved, on the motion of the Chairman, " That the differences which exist in the matter of the Commonweath and New Zealand tariffs should be made the subject of friendly negotiation between the two Governments with as little delay as possible." Mr. Stewart moved, and Mr. White seconded, a vote of thanks to the Chairman for presiding. The Chairman, in acknowledging the compliment, said he hoped that the result of the Conference would be of some advantage when negotiating for a commercial treaty. The Conference then adjourned.

APPENDICES. APPENDIX A. Letter from the Chairman forwarding Resolutions passed by the Conference. Str,— Wellington, 24th October, 1901. I have the honour to enclose to you copy of the resolutions passed by the Conference of Sawmillers this afternoon at the Parliamentary Buildings, and commend them to your kind and sympathetic consideration. I may say that the Conference was very sensible of the kindness of the Government in calling them together. I am, &c, W. Booth, Chairman. The Hon. C. H. Mills, Minister of Customs.

RESOLUTIONS PASSED BY THE TIMBER CONFERENCE. It was proposed by Mr. D. Goldie (representing the Auckland Sawmillers' Association), seconded by Mr. Frank Jagger (representing the Auckland Sawmillers' Association), and carried :— " That this meeting, very largely representing the timber industry in New Zealand, would urge upon the Government the necessity, in the interests of the workers of this country, of placing an export duty on all logs, either in the round or squared with axe or saw, of such an amount as will prevent the export of such timber from our shores." It was proposed by Mr. F. Jenssen (representing the Hawke's Bay Timber Company, Limited), seconded by Mr. W. J. White (representing the Auckland Sawmillers' Association), and carried :— "That the duty on round or squared logs be 3s. per 100 ft."