58 TIMBER SUPPLIES DURING THE WAR 



came into operation on July 4 they had issued 850 

 permits, they had decUned four, and the permits 

 under consideration at the moment numbered 100. 

 The quantities dealt with in those permits repre- 

 sented a total of 27,000,000 cubic feet of timber. 

 Of the 27,000,000 cubic feet he had stated, about 

 20,000,000 represented woods which had been 

 acquired for mining purposes — that was, pit wood 

 and pit props. The remaining quantity dealt with 

 sawn timber, and a certain percentage of hard 

 woods, such as oak and ash, were included. The 

 requirements of the country for the coal industry 

 were enormous, based upon the production of 

 250,000,000 tons per annum. It was estimated 

 that we required 3^,000,000 tons of pit props and 

 pit wood to enable that coal to Idc got. In other 

 words, for every tbn of YS'ood, between seventy 

 to eighty tons of coal were produced, so they 

 would realise the importance of the pit wood in- 

 dustry to enable us to get the coal which was 

 required to carry on, 



" In regard to the output of sawn timber, he was 

 hoping that during the next year we should be 

 able to produce some 600,000 standards of sawn 

 timber. That, he need not tell them, must be a 

 great increase on the rate of progress to-day. The 

 present production — so far as one could size it up 

 from figures which had been *suppUed to 'them 

 from various sources, and from their own pro- 

 duction — was roughly about one thousand standards 

 per day. Under the present conditions they were 

 endeavouring to double that output next year 

 (1918), and it had got to be done somehow or other^,. 

 The timber that •Was necessary to meet our obHga- 

 tions for next year had to be found very largely in 

 this country, and it was going to tax the efforts 



