File:Canadian forest industries 1886-1888 (1888) (20513941042).jpg

Title: Canadian forest industries 1886-1888
Identifier: canadianforest188688donm (find matches)
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors:
Subjects: Lumbering; Forests and forestry; Forest products; Wood-pulp industry; Wood-using industries
Publisher: Don Mills, Ont. : Southam Business Publications
Contributing Library: Fisher - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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THE CANADA LUMBERMAN. 3 Heavy Saw-Mill Machinery Twin Engine Steam Feed
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Portable aw-Mills. Semi-Portable Direct Action C lipper Saw-Mills. Saw-Mill Machinery. New Pattern Shinsle Machine. Veneer or Cheese Box ana Basket Stuff Machine. Lath Machines. Log lumen. Self-Acting Box Board Ma: nine. Saws of all the different st)les. GANDY BELTING— Best and Cheapest Main Driver. EWART LINK BELT- For Elevating and Conveying of every conceivable kind about a Saw Mill and elsewhere. SAW GIMMERS, $S.O up. SAW SWAGES. Knight Patent Mill Dog. Send for New Saw-Mill Circular No. 14 and New Saw and Saw Furnishing Circular No. 12. EASTERN OFFICE: 154 St. James St., MONTREAL. Waterous Engine Works Co., Brantford and Winnipeg THE FIRST TRADE RETURNS OF THE NEW YEAR. The Timber Trades Jaurnal of Feb. 13th says—Whatever our hopes, our wishes, and opinions! in social life, in politics, or in trade, if the outside facts that bear upon them will not adapt themselves to our theories, we have only to reconcile our ideas to the facts, and make the best we can ot them It was a pleasant anticipation that the new year was to bring us a revival of business. The depression in trade was to run itself out with the termination of 1885; and even men of experience and authority did not refrain from committing themselfes publicly to the opinion that the dawn of a better day was already breaking ere Christmas was well over our heads. 'But what do we see now? Here are the Board of Trade returns for January before us, and they tell the same tale of retrogression that was related of every month last year. J885 was a year of declining trade all through in comparison of '84, which itself was also a year of lessening business. But this January, in our over sea trade, is nearly £8,000,000 be- hind the January preceding. There is, how- ever, one redeeming point in our estimation, and that is that the bulk of the falling away has been in the import department, which has receded in the past month to the extent of £6,683,966. In our exports, if we include for- eign goods re-exported, the decrease is stated to be £1,181,637, total £7,867,603. Now, the aver- age decrease per month, last year, in the value of our exports, amounted to nearly £1,700,000, so that there was an appreciable check to the rate of diminution at least to the extent of £500,000 last month, which is a sort of peg to hang a hope upon. And it is rather strength- ened by the con-currentcircumstance that the volume of business done isalmost as great aslt was twelve months ago, but at a less valuation on account of the retrogression of prices; from which it may also be argued that, although the difference Is chiefly taken from the the wages of the people, it does not necessarily follow that they are thereby thrown out of employ- ment. If the same quantity of goods is turned oat, the same labour, or nearly so, must be employed to produce them. The misfortune Im that the workmen have to submit to smaller pay. Hence the strikes and locji-outs. When an employer finds that he is undersold in the market, though at his current price he is hard- ly, to use a homely phrase, "getting salt to his porridge," he has no alternative but to reduce his expenditure or to close his works, and the ready money outflow being that which pinch- es hardest, it is very naturally that which de- mands the first restraining hand. A constantly dimishing banking account, where a less and less balance is found with every returning Monday morning, is a state of things that cannot be trifled with, and one of the best masters in the world, like that poor unfortunate Frenchman, M. Watrin, at Dec- azeville, the other day, may, in trying to save his firm from ruin by reducing the people's wages, become all at once as unpopular as if he had been a persecutor of them all his life long. In 1884 and 1885 our oversea trade decreased by about £77,000,000, export and import together that is in two years. But last month it de- creased by £7,867,603 which is at the rate of £94,- 000,000 for one year. So that to those who re- gard our imports as the best standard of pros- perity this will be a severe shock, as five-sixths of the deficiency falls to the import depart- ment. On the other hand it may be fairly argued that a suspension of certain imports is a good ground for hope of a trade revival. When stocks here are allowed to run offbefore a general replenishing comes forward, asharp reaction may be expected to occur, as the de- mand will then exceed the supply, and we can always get goods from abroad when we want them. But the decay of our export trade offers us no consolation of that sort. Foreign tariffs and foreign competition with our manufactur- ers are increasing as shown by the statistics, which are constantly coming forward in the daily papers and the leading class journals. The importation of Spanish lead, for instance has almost annihilated that industry at home, as we learn from Iron, of last week, and now it seems they are sending hematite pig-iron in- to Staffordshire cheaper than it can be manu. factured on the spot. They have long been ac- customed to send the ore here, which is really good, and was used both in the Welsh and in the north-country iron works; but in a crude form of manufacture they now presume to dare our ironmasters to compete with them, and the result may be most disastrous to that important British industry. Not very long ago it will be remembered by buyers, that lead was worth over £20 per ton, and 30,000 people were said to be employed in our lead mines. But the Spaniards found by a few experiments that they could send their lead into England at a much less price, and do well by it, and the export from Spain to this country now is near 100,000 tons per annum. The most of our lead mines are consequently closed, while those re- maining are said to be working without profit and employing but few people. It is true the price has come down to £1215s., and the Span- ish lead is offered at 10s. less. But, wherever the benefit of this reduction goes, the consum- er shares very little of it, as the price of lead- en pipes and fittings in tbe building trade ap- pears to be very little reduced; so that a whole British industry is asserted to have been sacri- ficed for no appreciable benefit to the public at large. And the worst is that the iron trade is now threatened in much the same way, as the cases are precisely simiiar. For it is self-evi- dent that if the Spanish ironmasters can offer rich hematite pig cheaper than the Cleveland masters, there is nothing to prevent them from turning that branch of the iron trade away from our mining districts, just as they have done with their lead. We shall only remark on this topic that with so many people clamouring for employment among us, it must be well worth the careful study of our rulers to try and find how best such a state of things may be remedied, and that with as little delcy as possible. The tim- ber trade may have some trifling benefit from the cheapening of lead, but it is likely to be much more damaged by the ruin it has brought on a standard national industry. To sum up the Board of Trade general returns, they amount to this: that our imports for January were valued at £25,501,930, as against £31,903,003 last year as same date; and our exports were to the amount of £17,212,- 781, against £18,109,525 in 1885. Of the timber trade importation at this early period it is not customary to take much ac- count, but as we have to exhibit the returns as they come out, a few words may not be in- appropriate on introducing them. The state of this interest for the past month, as regards importation, sympathizes with the general returns, in exhibiting a decrease in comparison of the same month in either of the two preceding years. But when we consider the sort of weather which has pre- vailed, we are more surprised that so much has come forward than so little. As cus- tomary at this period of the year, the arrivals of hewn timber exceed those of sawn and split, but altogether the quantity that came into the United Kingdom during January only amount, ed to 104,854 loads, against 135,903 last year, and 137,941 loads in 1884. Of staves there is some increase, but of mahogany, also, the quantity imported is smaller by several cargoes; and nothing has yet come forward to interfere to any appreciable extent with the stocks already in the hands of the dealers. The severity of the weather up to the present date is likely to put back the Norway spring trade by at least a fortnight, which will be favourable to the holders of stock at home, and is likely to en- able them tc get clear of their winter storage at fair prices before the shipping ports are in full business for the coming season. The role is to furnish information frrm which our readers can draw their own conclu- sions. But the old precept may occasionally be suggested " It is good to make hay while the sun shines," and to part with your timber goods when you can get a fair profit on them, at all events, the chance is very likely to occur during this and the next month; but aiter that the shrewdest calculator may find himself all at sea. No one can safely predict what turn the trade will take when all the ports of the Gulf of Bothnia aud those of our Canadian possessions are clear of ice, and their shipping season fairly begun, which, from a trading point of view, may as yet be rather a remote contingency. But we may reasonably expect that there will be a good deal of business dong in Norway, and the lower ports of the Baltic, before May comes round. Let us hope that another month will exhibit the trade as visibly improving. West's Pain King works like a charm in re- lieving palu in the stomach, all bowel difficul- ties and cholera. No traveller should be wiic- out it. Snould alwavs be in the house. Cost but 25 cents. Sold by J. D. Tully, Druggist. WHY WILL YOU cough when Shiloch's Cn e will give give immediate relief Price 10 «»' 50 cts. and$L For sale by Ormond <S» Walsfcf druggists, Peterborough.

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