New Guinea Timber

Another Appeal For Aid

FURTHER appeals to the Australian Government for more sympa thetic consideration of the New Guinea timber industry are to be made.

Investigations during the past three or four years have shown that there are large quantities of timber in New Guinea, within transportable distance of the coast, which have a definite and increasing value in Australia. An in creasing number of people, representing various kinds of timber interests, have visited New Guinea in recent years, in search for lumber.

But Australia, although it cannot sup ply its own timber needs, puts a con siderable duty on timber in various shapes and forms, and it stubbornly insists on retaining this duty so far as the Australian Territories of Papua and New Guinea are concerned. It is almost impossible to bring sawn timber into •Australian ports, and there even are very considerable difficulties in the way of the importation of logs in bulk, Mr. Matthew Phillips, who was con nected with the C.S.R. Co. and other Fiji sugar concerns between 1900 and 1923, died recently at Nasinu, Fiji, aged 67,