The Evening Star FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3420, 6 February 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1874

The telegram from Wellington giving a rough outline of the scheme proposed for dealing with the forests in the Province only tells of the management of forest reserves so fur as cutting down timber is concerned. Nor do we see exactly, so far as it is developed, any other proposition than that of converting the Government into wholesale timber merchants. We quite coincide in the opinion that great waste is inseparable from our present mode of dealing with forest land ; that timber is recklessly felled at wrong seasons of the year j that in consequence it soon perishes, and thus becomes comparatively worthless as an article of commerce. Neither can there be any doubt that the clearing of the land under proper regulations, tends to add much to its value as part of the public estate • as the proceeds of the timber, or rather the profit on the sale of it, after deducting the cost of felling and perhaps grubbing, will form part of the money obtained by the sale of it. So far as this goes, we look upon it as a vast improvement upon our present system of issuing bush licenses, and allowing settlers to fell and waste our very scanty timber reserves when and how they choose. Nor do we see that the proprietors of saw mills in the neighborhood of forest land have cause to grumble with apian that is followed by the estate stewards of the English nobility and of the Crown timber reserves. No indiscriminate felling is allowed there. The woods and plantations ai’e thoroughly examined, and those trees marked which may be removed, subject to such restrictions as may be agreed upon between the purchaser and the landed proprietor. In all probability, through adopting system, there may be a slight increase of price in the first instance ; but that will be more than compensated by the superiority in quality of the wood ; and in the end the country will be the gainer, through the conservation and utilization of large tracts of forest now wastefully and extravagantly cut down, which when destroyed, will render the importation of foreign timber necessary at a greatly increased cost. Our present practice is a reckless sacrifice of the future to the present. But the regulation of the destructive process, though a very necessary part of national economy, will be comparatively useless without adopting measures for Reproduction. This is the one point on which most of our legislation and practice fail. It is evident that to this essential to continued national prosperity attention must be given. Neglect of the future is evident throughout all our land regulations. We can partly understand how this concentration of efforts upon the present has been fostered. Early settlers failed to comprehend the difference of circumstances in which they were placed on their advent to a desert land, from those they left behind in Great Britain. In the old world feudalism has created for itself conservative institutions. The law of succession to landed estates has led to methods of improvement based upon the instinct that as future lords must be provided for, the family property must be handed down unimpaired, if not increased in value. With this purpose in view, the land is not allowed to be exhausted by ruinous cropping for present profit only ; and if forest trees are cut down forests are planted* Consumption and reproduction are, to say the least, balanced. But no such nice appreciation of the relative duties of present and future guided our first settlers. They came with the intention of making fortunes; most of them nursing the resolution, if they succeeded, to return to their native country, and in their last days to enjoy the fruits of their early labors. The present, with them, was all they looked to: in the future they had no interest. It is for us, who have come after them, to remedy this evil before it is too late. We do not want landlordism as it exists at Home. There it has cut the country up into a number of petty territories, over which each landed proprietor isabsolute lord. Great Britain, in. fact, may be considered a federation of landlords, who have agreed upon common laws affecting the whole population, but so far as the land goes, each is a monarch in his own right. Theory does not admit this, but like many other theories, practice contradicts it. Such a system is not desirable here. It would be better to have the Government as a landlord, subjected to constitutional control, than to part with all our national interest in the national property. And this is really the position that has been taken by leasing runs to squatters, agricultural areas to farmers, mining leases to miners, coal leases to coal miners, and by taking upon itself the management of our forests. The idea is distasteful to many of our contemporaries, who have busied themselves with raising objections to a system which they do not perceive has taken root amongst ns, and is gradually extending, as a matter of expediency. As a corollary to the regulation for felling timber, must be one enacting planting forest trees. We suggested some time ago that one of the conditions of felling should be that for every tree cut down, the holder of a felling licence should bind himself to plant or contribute plants of timber trees for rearing on some adjacent reserve. Most probably the Government scheme about to be tried in Wellington includes this idea. The sale of the

timber will realise a fund for profitable investment in timber planting, and as nations do not die, but have a perpetual interest in the national estate, the future forest revenue may become an important consideration. The whole question must come before our Provincial Council, as well as that of flax cutting and destroying. Thus far serious inconvenience has not been felt, because our industries have been few, and scarcely dependent upon vegetable reproduction : but the conditions of society are changing. What was looked upon as harmless twenty years ago, is now seen to be national waste, and measures must be taken to correct the evil.