H.—lB.

16

[j. E. MACMANUB.

21. The Chairman.] Is not Invercargill the place to which timber is got much easier from Catlin's and different bushes than to Dunedin ? —Yes. 22. Is there no other way of bringing timber to Dunedin than by railway ? They must have other sources of supply ? —I would not like to express an opinion, because I have not gone into it. 23. What is the cause of the price ?—Excessive royalty on the timber charged by the people who own the land. 24. Is there any harm in the owners of the standing timber selling it to the best advantage ?— If they sell to the best advantage some one has to pay for it. 25. Have we not to allow the labourer to sell his labour to the best advantage ? —Yes. 26. Then why should a man who owns timber be treated differently to the man who owns labour ? —Because the man who owns the timber never made it. He simply occupies the land. 27. The State has given the man who owns the timber a certain right ? —Once the State has given that right it gives power to monopolize timber, and is responsible for the price of timber. 28. Timber is one of those things which is a wasting product. Twenty years ago there was a good deal more timber in the country than there is to-day. To encourage settlement in the North Island and other places forests have been burned down ; is that a fact ?—Yes. 29. Might not the rise in price be due to the fact that there is not enough to meet the demand now —increased population, with a decrease in the supply ? —lt appears to me that any one wanting timber can get it if he is prepared to pay for it, and the reason for having to pay so much is that private persons own the land and demand their price for the timber, and that price is regulated by the price in foreign countries. 30. Mr. Hall.] Is it not a fact that they have now to go further back for the timber? —At Houipapa the mills are right on the railway-line, and the man who is farther back from the railway does not get the same amount of royalty. 31. What royalties do the Government charge for cutting timber. The Government charge a royalty on all timber cut on Crown lands, and 1 understand there is a regulation that one millowner can only occupy a certain number of acres ?—There is a case of that in the South. 32. The Chairman.] Have you any reason to believe that there has been any collusion between the timber-merchants to raise these prices ?—I have no facts of my own knowledge, beyond the fact that the price has been raised. I made the assertion that butter was sold to me at Is. 6d. a pound. I have my grocers' duplicates of sales showing that on the 31st July butter was sold to me at that price. 33. Mr. Macdonald.] Is there anything about bacon on that date ?—Yes, lOd. lam informed by my wife that eggs to-day are 2s. 3d. per dozen. On the date in July, 1911, I have just given they were Bd. per half dozen. 34. Mr. Veitch.] Do you know of an arrangement of any kind between the sawmillers for the purpose of regulating certain prices ? —I do not know anything of my own knowledge, except that the price has gone up, and I have given evidence to that effect. 35. You could not attribute the rise to any other cause ? —I attribute it mainly to the fact that the protective duty has enabled them to charge a higher price locally as royalty on the timber, which is exacted from the sawmillers. They are paying as high as £5 per acre at Catlin's. 36. The protective duty has enabled timber to be sold retail at a higher price, and that higher price has gone to the landowner in the form of royalty ?—That is so. 37. You do not know of any combination between the retailers of timber ?—No. There is one point more in connection with labour legislation, and it has a bearing on the commodities of life. Some time ago the Tramways Department of the Dunedin City Council raised wages by £2,000 per annum. Some time previous to this they had given concessions to the travelling public, but the increase in wages did not cause them to take away any of the concessions to the travelling public. I suggest that the reason for that is that the trams here being owned by the people are not used to exact profit. If owned by a private company the rise in wages would be used as a pretext to further increase the tram fares. 38. The Chairman.] Can you give us any instance of your own knowledge where a small increase in wages has been the pretext for exacting much higher prices from the consumer ?—Yes. I understand that when the increase was granted to the wharf labourers in this city an increase of Is. per ton was put on freights. The wages of the wharf labourers were increased from Is. 3d. to Is. sd. per hour. The Harbour Board were receiving Is. per ton for loading and unloading, and were able to sublet to Mill and Co. for somewhere about 7Jd. per ton. If Mill and Co. could do it for 7Jd. a ton with wages at Is. 3d. per hour there was no reason for an increase in the freights by Is. when the wages were increased to Is. sd. 39. Your point is that the amount received by the extra shilling being put on was greatly in excess of what would be paid in extra wages ? —Yes. There is one other point in connection with the cost of living. Recently a man at Lawrence told me that he received sd. a pair for rabbits with the skins on. In the city they charge lOd. a pair with the skins off. I understand that in Dunedin a pair of rabbit-skins are sd. in the middle of winter. 40. What would the freight from Lawrence to Dunedin on a pair of rabbits work out at ? —I do not know, but Ido not think it would come to anything like sd. Even if it did there would still be the profit of sd. on the skins. 41. Are these rabbits sold in Dunedin by the men who shoot them ?—No, they are sold by different agents. Sullivan is one. 42. Do you think the margin of sd. and lOd. goes to the producer ?—No, the producer has to find his horse and traps. 43. He gets sd. ?—Yes. 44. Where does the other sd. go ? —lt goes to the distributer, who also has a profit of 5d- on the skins. Skins are not always worth sd. a pair.