RAILWAY RATES. 101 



be so inferior that the returns are lower than they should be. 

 When the new Forest Authority has time to take up the question 

 it may be possible to draw up tables based on average results, 

 giving the net yield which woods can give if managed according to 

 sound silvicultural principles, on which taxation can be based. 

 Such tables should be graded according to quality classes of 

 locality and species. 



12. Railway Rates. 



The high cost of transporting home-grown timber by rail has 

 been the source of many complaints by timber growers. They 

 argue that timber is deserving of a lower classification than 

 that actually assigned to it, that imported timber receives more 

 favourable consideration, and generally that rates should be 

 reduced to a level permitting home-grown timber to compete in 

 the open market with imported material. To these arguments 

 the railway companies answer that home-grown timber is 

 placed on rail intermittently and in small lots, that it takes up 

 much space in proportion to its weight, and that the maximum 

 rates fixed by Parhament have not been exceeded. The Sub- 

 Committee beHeved that the timber industry has been unduly 

 hampered by railway rates, and that large quantities of valuable 

 home-grown timber fail to reach their most useful market owing 

 to the heavy railway charges. The question is, however, beset 

 by considerable difficulties, especially at the present time. It 

 should be inquired into in any case, as it is highly desirable that 

 rates should, if possible, be granted between the main producing 

 and consuming centres which would make timber growing fairly 

 remunerative. Time will, no doubt, remove one difficulty. In 

 the same degree as silviculture improves, will the main argument 

 of the railway companies disappear. Timber will be produced 

 which in shape resembles that now imported from abroad ; it 

 will pack better and be delivered on rail in larger quantities and at 

 regular intervals. 



13. Organisation of the Timber Industry. 



The difficulty of improvising in time of an emergency hke that 

 of the late war an organisation to provide increased home supplies 



