The Dominion FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 1919. A POLICY OF DRIFT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 169, 11 April 1919, Page 6

The Dominion FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 1919. A POLICY OF DRIFT

A good deal has been saicl at different times about the importance of forest development in this country as a ready means of at once opening a wide field of desirable employment and adding to the wealth and revenues of the State in such a measure as materially to assist it in coping with the burdens left by the war. Unfortunately the Government has not yet shown the spirit of enterprise in regard to forestry that is called for if the most is to be made of its possibilities. Some tentative stejas have been taken towards organising a Forestry Department, and provision was lately made for a measure of regulation henceforth in limborcnt.ting, but in the main we are still at the stage of destructive chaos where the administration of our remaining forests is concerned. The true position was made painfully apparent the other clay when two hundred thousand feet of kauri at Waipoua—worth well over £200,000 at the mill if it had been felled and sawn—went up in smoke because no break had been made between the preserved forest and the holding of a neighbouring settler. The continued failure of the Government to actively set about remedying the state of affairs thus illustrated is hard to understand. It is to be emphasised that in this matter we are lagging disastrously behind the times. This is not only because the forests of the Dominion at present represent a vast body of wealth that is being ueglected_ or squandered, but because the institution of a sound forest nolicy is an essential preliminary to the promotion of a comprehensive scheme of settlement and rural development. The apathy displayed in this country in regard to forestry _ is in absolute contrast to the spirit in evidence in countries at a similar stage of development even where their forest resources are proportionately much inferior to those of the Dominion. ' For instance, modem forest laws have been passed m nearly all the Australian States, notably New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia. Queensland is now added to the list of States'which cau boast a progressive forest policy, and it is particularly noteworthy that in Queensland one of the most earnest advocates of tho adoption of sound methods in conserving and working the forests is the Minister of Lands, Mr. J. H. Coyne. In countries where forestry has been neglected there is a somewhat widespread tendency to regard tljc forester as ail opponent of land settlement, a person devoted (to borrow a phrase from Mb. Coyne) to "a pottering sort of academic tree-gardening. ' No more fallacious idea was ever raised. It is primarily the function of the forester to produce timber by the most economical methods, and so keep down the cost of living and housing, and sustain the industries in which timber is an essential material. Performing this function, however, the forester., far from limiting tho scope of land settlement, broadens it enormously. Cultivated forests, suitably located, afford employment to many -more workers,' and homes to a much larger number of settlers than could be employed and established on tho same areas if they were given over to any other form of cultivation. In a recent interview, the Queensland Minister of Lands laid pointed emphasis upon these, and related facts, and made it clear that he aims at securing the recognition of forestry as an indispensable f branch of land settlement. With the reservation that efficient timber production is only to be attained through the agency of a technical department working under such conditions as will permit continuity of policy, this "is putting matters in their right perspective. 1

It is a matter for serious regret that the New Zealand Government has uofc yet grasped these fundamental facts, or at all_ events has yet to give them expression in practical policy. As matters stand not only arc the few rich forests left to the' State being neglectecl or wasted, but poor land suitable for forest growth and.for nothing else is being alienated for settlement. This is bad settlement as well as bad forestry. A glaring example of this foolish policy is the alienation at very low rates of kauri land in North Auckland, some of it with a certain amount of kauri actually standing. In many cases such land will make very poor farms, affording at best a precarious.livelihood to settlers, whereas under _ timber they could be brought in time into much productivity. The whole question at stake is one of working out an orderly policy, and obviously the interests at stake hinge not only upon forestry and the production and use of timber, but upon settlement and rural development in their broadest aspects. Continued neglect of forestry and wasteful destruction of forests would amount simply to putting a very considerable part of the total land area of New Zealand to the worst and least profitable instead of the best and most pi ofitable use. Adding to this that our remaining forests offer, if worked on right lines, an immediate return which would covcr the cost of a very large amount of roading and other development- work, it is evident that the, Government will fail inexcusably in its duty if it delays any longer in resolutely remedying tho existing state of affairs.