1 OCTOBER 1932, Page 6

I hear of a rather interesting commentary on the talk

(particularly the Ottawa talk), about dumped Russian timber. The British soft-wood importers, it will be remembered, bought the whole of this year's shipment of Russian timber at a fixed price, with, how- ever, the proviso that there should be a readjustment of the figure agreed if the world price should fall below it. Such a fall has in fact taken place in some lines of timber, and the 'importers claim that the Russian price should in consequence be reduced. The Soviet Government con- tests the claim, and the matter has gone to arbitration, as provided in the original agreement. The trouble, in short, about the so-called dumped timber is not that it is