WAR INFLUENCES 6i 



owners' Advisory Committee, the ready assistance 

 which they were ever willing to give him, and also 

 the assistance he had received from the Trade 

 Advisory Committee he much appreciated. The 

 result was the issue of the schedule of December 4, 

 1917, fixing maximum prices. ... As he had said, 

 he had done the best he could in the circumstances, 

 and he thought — at least he hoped they would 

 think that he had endeavoured to meet the case 

 as fairly as possible. 



" There was another point which he would venture 

 perhaps to address to that assembly as representing 

 the owners of timber, and that was this — before the 

 war, in England at any rate, the demand for home- 

 grown timber was small ; in Scotland it was larger ; 

 in Ireland it was small also. What was the position 

 now ? They were being asked to hand over their 

 woods by the miUion cubic feet, they were gettfllg 

 in some cases much larger percentages on the cost 

 of the timber than those which obtained prior to 

 the war, not that he thought the prices which, in 

 some instances, were paid for timber prior to the 

 war represented its value, because he had had timber 

 given to him. as an engineer for the cost of hauling 

 in the days prior to the war. That did not represent 

 anjrthing to his mind at all, but there had been, and 

 there was still, a large amount of money being paid 

 for standing timber in this country which, had it 

 not been for the circumstances of the war, would 

 probably never have been realised. In that sense 

 they had to take that into consideration when fixing 

 prices for standing timber. There was another 

 point which he would just touch on. As they knew, 

 prior to the war the sale of English timber — of the 

 soft woods in particular — was limited, whereas 

 imported timber was brought to us by our ships 



