The Dominion. TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1920. A PROFITABLE INVESTMENT
The practical advantages of a sound forest policy arc very effectively omphasised by the Director of Forestry (Captain Ellis) in his first report. The report is a comprehensive document in which Captain Ellis seta out his policy proposals in elaborate detail and deals with forestry in all its aspects. .At the outset, however, it is natural that the sweeping changes in the utilisation of timber resources it is proposed to effect under the administration of the Forestry Department should bo regarded and measured chiefly from the. economic standpoint. Tlio Department obviously will best obtain the working scope it needs by showing that its activities will confer substantial benefits on the public and that there is an assurance of profitable returns from whatever outlay is involved. The Director of Forestry evidently is fully alive to these considerations. In an important section of his report he demonstrates that efficient forest management offers big profits, not merely in tho distant future, but within a year or two—as soon, that is to say, as a properly-organised Forest can be established on a, working basis. His clear analysis and statement of the facts seems to leave no room for doubt on these points. Dealing with tho ruinous wast© of forest wealth that is now going on, he points out that it is to all intents and purposes invited in the conditions on which milling rights have hitherto been ceded by the State. In the first place no provision at all is made for the protection of young growth. Up to the present a milling lease or license has been incidentally an authority to wreck and utterly destroy a given area of forest even where'it is situated on land that will grow nothing else than timber, and might easily be made to produce timber in perpetuity. 'Captain Ellis of course urges that this process of destruction, should cease, but he points out also existing regulations are an incentive to the Ecrious waste of grown timber as well as to tho devastation of forests. Existing royalties are little if anything higher than they were many years ago when timber was far cheaper and more plentiful than it is to-da,y,_ and it is still worse that, except in a few northern districts, they are assessed not on the amount of timber a tract of forest contains, but on the quantity of sawn timber produced. In such conditions wholesale waste is inevitable. The Director of Forestry states that at present on an average not more than twenty-five per cent, of the ligneous material (wood) in a, forest aero in the Dominion is used and marketed. He affirms that in a few years, under sound methods, the percentage of wood utilised will probably exceed sixty-five per cent. As one step towards this great economy, Captain Ellis recommends the adoption of a timber sale policy under which the State will receive full market value for the whole of the raw material produced in the forests. His detail proposals include an equitable increase in royalties, and the adjustment of these charges at five-year intervals in accordance with variations in the wholesale price of timber. He particularly emphasises that royalties_ ought to be assessed, not on sawn timber, but on an. accurate measurement and ■ appraisal of the cubic content of trees under the bark. The State will thus_ obtain fair value for what it has to'sell, and. millers will be given every incentive to adopt economical methods. These changes will go hand in hand with .general forest development and the practical utilisation of inferior timbers now wasted. As another measure of economy, Captain Ellis recommends that all existing timber concessions (where the land is unsuitable for agriculture) should be made renewable and transferable in perpetuity so long as they carry merchantable timber and the new conditions in regard to royalties and regulations are observed. It is particularly emphasised that the whole success of forest policy depends absolutely on unhampered and comprehensive control of all its details by an efficiently organised Forest Service.
Im these and related proposals a. distinctly practical approach is made to a solution of the full problem of putting the forests of the Dominion on a basis of permanent productivity. In view of the vast, economy to be effected in utilising 65 instead of only 25 per cent, of the ligneous growth of forests there need be no difficulty in accepting the Director of Forestry's contentions that the changes which will give the State greatly increased forest revenues, and so provide an assured basis for forest finance, will at the same time keep down the cost of timber to the consuming public, and give the sawmilling industry a firmer as well as more permanent footing than it en-joys.to-day. As showing what is possible in the matter of revenue he cites the fact that following on the establishment of a Forest Service in British Columbia, the forest reserves more than tripled in a period oi eight years. _ The, need of early measures to stabilise timber prices is sufficiently emphasised in the rate at which they have advanced in recent years. For instance, in 1909 ordinary building rimu sold in Wellington at 12s. Gd. per hundred feet. The price of the same material last month was 31s. per hundred feet. The more efficient utilisation nf forests offers tho only feasible method of keeping the price of timber within bounds. Forestry, of course, is recommended on various other grounds. There are millions of acres of land in this country which must either be utilised with great profit for forest growth or allowed to lapse into barren waste. The conservation of forests is vitalalso for climatic reasons, in connection with irrigation and hydro-electric works and sources of water supply, and in order to avert the wastage of valuable agricultural lands by erosion and by the operation of disastrous floods. In his report Captain Eu.is enlarges upon these and many other pertinent facts, but even if the case ho states rested solely on the benefits of an assured timber supply and economical utilisation of forest products it would still be convincing. In view of the great benefits in near prospect the financial proposals embodied in the report arc on a distinctly modest scale Tho principal item is the provision over a period of from five to seven years of a loan of about £850,000 to bo expended on tho development and improvement of native forests, tho extension of plantations, the acquisition of forests and forest lands, and the encouragement
of private planting. Captain Ems points out that tho forests offer a tenfold or fifteen-fold security for this loan, and he states that accruing revenues would provide for the redemption of at least a proportion of the debentures. As to annual charges he maintains that the whole cost of the Forest Service would constitute as time went on a smaller and smaller percentage of the forest revenue. Apart from its vital necessity, forest conservation on this showing offers such returns on the investment of public money as even in this wellendowed country it would bo hard to equal.
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Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 289, 31 August 1920, Page 4
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1,191The Dominion. TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1920. A PROFITABLE INVESTMENT Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 289, 31 August 1920, Page 4
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