CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 949, 17 October 1910, Page 6

CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.

Although' the policy .inaugurated by Me. Roosevelt of conserving the natural 'of. the United States is still meeting with strong opposition in some quarters, theexPresidcht's severest critics / are pleased to admit that his two Administrations, even If poor/ in ' constructive: arid statesmanship," resulted in clearly defining; and setting forward the one great issue with which . the-' future prosperity of -. the .United .States ia • mosticlosely : identified, - that of conserving: the. natural" wealth .of .tho lq,nd. Competent scientific ' authorities have brought into notice sufficient statistical proof iatibrial -wastefulness. ! said to distinguish the American people must lead to very serious • consequences,, and that, too,'in the not-far-distant future'.' Although the dismissal. by President Taft of 'Me.-' Pincuot, chief of the Forestry Department. under . President RoOsevelt, and - the, latter's right-hand man; in the,coriservatibri-'scheme, precipitated a crisis that' nearly. wrecked the Republican party, many' of the planks that made up tho Roosevelt policy of conservation havo since passed into law and:the Governmentwill undertake. the economic exploi; tation of many millions'of acres of forest and mineral laiids. A survey of the situation is interesting. Tho American forests, the 'products of. centuries of growth,; are fast / disappearing. It is calculated that the. merchantable timber now standing is less than-2,000,000,000,000 feet ; the annual cut is 40,000,000,000 ; - feet, which,rapidly . increasing ..year ' by. year,; makes the • exhaustion .of the. United States timber supplies within '.half a, century, a certainty iinless the; process of afforestation is consistently and vigorously carried on and the depleted areas replanted. • ■America uses annually- five hundred feet board measure of timber per capita, as against- an average of sixty feet for all Europe.;; Recent destructive' ■■ forest fires .' add materially' . to ;:; the ■ . seriousness of: the position. Then . again, exhaustion ; bf the/ coal, _ supplies,' authorities declare, is not in the indefinite future. The figures are startling ,in their magnitude and point to an almost total depletion by the close of the century, when the cost of the product by the sinking o£ mines to-greater'depth's will be ' considerablyrincreased. ■ . . ' The gro'wth of • the iron industry was hot- long ago .. described by Mr. : James J. Hill, . the railroad /magnate, as. "the most impressive phenomenon of last century's commerce." The large deposits of iron ore in the United States are nowlocated and the available supplies approximately estimated./ Over 2,000,000,000 tons of ore will be required to meet the demands of the next forty'years, by which time, according to Mr. . Hill, the end'of all the higher grade- ore in large deposits will be approached. A recent cable message drew, attention to the fact that rain-storms had flooded a strip of country • 'extending from Eastern: Texas, across Northern Louisiana,. Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, converting this enor-; mous area almost into an inland sea;. It is worth. noticing, in this connection, part of a'report submitted.-to the conference.that met in the White House at Washington last year, attended by. President Roosevelt and the Governors of the various ■ States, and Territories, to consider the question of the conservation' of the. natural - resources of- the country. The report stated:,

There arc'two ways in-which the productive power of the earth, is lessened: First, by erosion and the sweeping away, of the fertile surface into streams and thenco to the sen, and sccond, by exhaustion through wrong method? of cultivation. The former process has gone far. Thousands of acres in the East and South have been made unfit for tillage. North Carolina was, a century ago, one of the great agricultural States of the country, and one of. the wealthiest. To-day, as you ride through the South, you see everywhere land gullied by--tor-rential'rains, red and yellow clay ban?cs exposed whevo once- were fertile fields; and agriculture reduced because its main support has been washed away. Millions of acres,, in places to'the extent of one-tenth of the. entire arable area, have been so injured that no. industry and no cave »n vep.lticn thorn..

In the great ■ question of the conservation of natural resources not only is the economic, but the political, future of the country involved. When the want of work or the pinch of poverty is felt people are apt to lay violent hands on their political institutions in the hope that a change might afford relief from their distress. Prophecies of this danger befalling the United States have already gone on record. The improvement of the soil to. the highest , degree of productivity promised f by scientific culture and aided, by experiment, with ready access, appears to be the. first command of any political economy worthy of the name. In New Zealand the tendency, of our legislators is to live only in the immediate present—the chief and .only, •policy of the moment is the policy of retaining'office at any cost.