The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3447, 10 March 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1874

The report of the Committee appointed by th<i "Waste Land Board concerning the forests of Otago is interesting on many grounds. Few who have not travelled southward, and whose acquaintance with the country is confined to the woodless districts in the north of Otago, would have credited that so much valuable timber is in the Province, had the statistics not been placed thus specifically before them. We are only now beginning to realize the vast value of the landed estate that we possess. We have been accustomed thus-far to look very much to foreign supplies of wood for industrial purposes, and to regard the indigenous forest as useful only for firewood, In many instances it has been lavishly felled and left to rot on the ground because some who had paid a trifle -for a splitter’s license had carelessly selected

trees not suitable for their purpose; in others the timber has been treated as a nuisance, and burnt as useless lumber; and in other cases acres of noble trees have been sacrificed by runholdera who wanted the ground for feeding sheep, and the rental of each of whose runs did not amount to the value of half a dozen of tbe forest monarchs that they, as tenants of the Crown, should have been bound to conserve. The Committee report that:—

Since the Colony was founded, 51,262 acres of the public forests have passed into private hands, of which 14,654 acres have been de stroyed by fire or otherwise ; and of the public forests remaining, 12,787 acres have been destroyed by the same means—the result of carelessness, the burning of grass on runs, and the unregulated operations of wood-license holders. The causes of the destruction of forests on private property are the clearing of the land for cultivation, felling of timber for sawing, fencing, and, in the neighborhood of Dunedin, principally for firewood ; and which causes, in the opinion of the rangers, are rapidly bringing about an obliteration of this property of the State.

The above paragraph points to the utter absence of system and sound principle in the past administration of the land regulations of the Province. Men talk of the land and parting with all control over it, as if the community had no interest in its management or utilization. They say, truely enough, that population should be placed upon it ; and that it should not be an idle population. Their natural instincts tell them that if the soil is occupied,, it should be used ; for on its produce depend tbe very food they eat and every comfort they possess; but they have not hitherto thought it necessary to classify the land according to its capabilities ; and, if it must be sold, to part with it on terms giving back to the State—the community, society, mankind, or whatever name men choose to call the dwellers in a country—an equivalent for the use or profit that may be realised from its products. They have given away the absolute control over it: the freeholder buys not only the right to use land, but to let it be idle; not only to profit by what is on it, but to destroy it ] not only to use it for tillage or grazing, but to eut down the timber that, till then, was common property, or burn it because he has not the capital or haply the brains to make it useful. If any single circumstance can bring the truth home to our understandings that our whole land system is based upon a fallacy, it is the fact so prominently set out by the Committee, of the Waste Land Board of wliat they truly terra “ this property of the State.” We will not dwell upon the form in which the idea is expressed, excepting to observe that" it involves a contradiction so far as the destruction of timber on freeholds is concerned. The State ha« parted with its property there, and transferred the control of it to others. The expression is so far significant that it implies the idea resulting from intuitive perception of the nature of a common inheritance. There is, however, nothing like figures for bringing pradically before the mind the misuse to which holders of private property, and those who are careless of public property, have put “ the property of the State.” Of the 51,262 acreg of forest land transferred by sale to freeholders, 11 14,654 acres have been desivoyed by fire or otherwise, and of public forests 12,787 acres.” That is, 27,441 acres have been burnt up wantonly, carelessly, or cut for use. Assuming that of this destruction 15.000 acres have been absolutely wasted, which is probably under the mark, it follows, according to the data laid down, 120,000,000 feet of valuable timber have been absolutely thrown away; the value of which is equal to a wages fund of L 600,00 sum equal to the construction of 120 miles of railway, which, if formed into the heart of the timber producing districts, would have given employment to hundreds of men, opened up the country, and enriched all classes by establishing a valuable export trade. But what of the 36.000 acres yet remaining in private hands—how has it been treated and sold ? Gone—the most of it at 20s an acre—the price of the land, and the timber given in to the bargain ! la regard to it, it is pure nonsense to talk of “this property of the State.” The Committee have clone their work well, so far as disclosing facts are concerned. Those facts show how little our land reformers, who have framed our land regulations, and who talk so glibly about free selection, deferrred payments, and all the wonderful nostrums for raising up a yeomanry, know about the national property they are so busy contriving schemes to alienate. We cannot, however, give them credit for the wisdom of their suggestions. They say :

While, from the evidence we have collected, we do not see any stringent necessity for planting operations with the view of replacing the natural forests, yet we are clearly of opinion that the work must be some time hence initiated.

One would imagine that trees grew in a year like corn, and that the destruction of timber did not really mean the cutting down in one day what required thirty, fifty, or a hundred years to produce. Perhaps our Committee, who have shown such commendable acquaintanceship with common arithmetic, forgot to put one question on paper, which may be stated thus:—“ If in twenty years a population averaging say 40,000 have destroyed 28,000 acres of forest, how many acres will an average population of 150,000 use, destroy, and export in the next twenty years 1 ” We know it is a puzzler, because railways will be made into the hearts of the forests, and saw-mills will cut up and utilize the timber in geometrical proportion; so that the

most skilful arithmetician ■would be unable even to approximate to the truth. Our conclusion is, therefore, the sooner we begin to plant, the better for ' our successors, to whom we are bound to hand down the estate unimpaired. Meantime, our friends who have been lucky enough to become holders of forest land, will do well to give an eye to the preservation of their trees, for unless we begin to plant their value will increase year by year. The holders have in their possession the accumulated wealth of centuries, and we congratulate them on their bargains—but let us sell no more on like terras. "What is left is thus far , the property of the State, and wisely used may tend to enrich all by equitable contributions to the public revenue.