I am afraid I do not know the answer to that question. I have heard the case quoted by my hon. Friend of an Eireann manufacturer who went to one of those countries and was able to buy timber which was not available to British manufacturers. All I can say about that is, that when that case was brought to my notice said, "Please provide me with factual evidence, and I will have the whole thing inquired into." But I have not yet received that factual evidence, and until I do there is nothing I can do about it. That is not the only case of allegations of that kind, quite unsubstantiated by factual evidence on which I might be able to act.

We are buying a certain amount of soft wood from the United States of America, and Czechoslovakia and Austria—not as much as we should like; but, here again, we are bound by the amount of timber that those countries are prepared to let us have. If they do not want us to have more than we are getting there is nothing I, or anybody else in the Board of Trade or in Timber Control, can do about it. We have been trying to buy timber in Jugoslavia for over a year unsuccessfully. A question was answered about that in the House on Thursday last. The House has been informed it has not been possible to buy from Roumania.

I have left till last the question of Germany, possibly one of the most important. We did not import a great deal of timber from Germany in prewar years. In fact, Germany was, on the whole probably, an importing country itself. But we decided that we would avail ourselves of whatever timber there was in that country. We set up the North German Timber Control, and put the Director of Home Timber Production, Sir Gerald Lenanton, in charge of it. But that could not be expected immediately to begin delivering the goods. There was a number of problems—the problem of staffing, the problem of providing food in an impoverished country, in the British zone, for the people who were going to hew, cut and transport the timber. It was necessary to provide transport. There was a slow start; but we are proceeding, with a measure of success. We are concentrating on producing from Germany, either cut in Germany or imported here in logs, timber of housing size; in the main soft wood; and we have been successful in getting some timber out of the American zone of Germany, somewhat better placed than we are in the British zone. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Are we getting any from the Russian zone?"[No. Last year we got 55,000 standards out of Germany. That is considerably more than was exported out of Germany in prewar years. We hope, and, indeed, we are pretty sure, we shall do better this year.

On hard woods, I would ask hon. Members who are interested in this subject to glance at the "Board of Trade Journal" for 23rd November last, in which the situation was set out very clearly. Before the war there was little home produced hard wood, but during the last two or three years the greater part of our supplies of hard wood have been produced at home; but these supplies are now declining—inevitably, because of the inroads made in them in two world wars.

We should like to cut down consumption to a minimum of hard woods in order to conserve our stocks, but so far that has not been possible; but, as it is, the decline in home production, unaccompanied by an increase in imports, has meant, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe said, drastic cuts in the allocations of hard wood to our furniture manufacturers. We did import, prewar, large quantities from the United States of America, our largest supplier, but here we are limited by the home demand in the United States, which, in fact, are importing hard woods themselves, and have a ceiling placed on export licences. This, of course, applies to most of the other countries that are normally suppliers of hard woods.

We have expanded to a very considerable extent imports from West Africa, and we shall go on doing our very best in that direction. We are trying a number of new and unfamiliar timbers from a variety of countries, including timbers which we have had almost to force upon manufacturers who are quite unaccustomed to dealing with particular kinds of wood we are importing from these new sources.

May I say, to conclude, that the available supplies of timber, whether of soft wood or hard wood or plywood, have to be shared out between housing, furniture, and other requirements. It is unwise to hope for a spectacular improvement, and I should be rash if I speculated now, at the beginning, or just before the opening, of the buying season, as to what is going to happen. We are doing our very best. We are scouring the world for these supplies of timber, and it is not easy; but we shall go on trying. But British industry can make a contribution. In so far as we can increase our exports of those things which the people in the timber producing countries want, so shall we be able, I hope, to get increasing supplies of both soft woods and hard woods.