The Evening Star. THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3574, 6 August 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star. THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1874

The telegraphic report of Mr Vogel’s speech on the Conservation of Forests ; Bill which we publish to-day, should have appeared in last evening’s publication, had the Telegraph Department appreciated their duty to the public, and transmitted the message when presented. It will be seen that in many' important particulars it differs from, the less clear telegrams forwarded to the morning journals. Mr Vogel has spoken out as he ought to do : he has at length shown to the country what we have so often pointed out, that the North Island has been most unwarrantably subsidised at the cost of

the whole Colony, and that, not satisfied with what has been already done, there is still a cry for more. The Middle Island is to blame for the short sightedness and obstruotiveness of its own representatives for permitting such things. They have allowed themselves to be divided when they ought to have been united, and have too often, for party purposes, sacrificed the general interest, in an endeavor to serve themselves. The usual consequences have followedpetted and spoiled, the Provinces of the North have made concession the price of their sup-

port, and when no longer able to obtain what they ask, viper-like they turn and wound the hand that fed them. The mask is off, and the Colony knows the price that has been paid. But we are still a divided Middle Island. We have Mr Reid opposing the Conservation of Forests Bill, on the ground that it is unnecessary ; that the Government is interfering with private enterprise; that Provincial management is sufficient to ensure both timber supply and planting ; that the Government ought not to go further than provide an abundant supply of seed for forest trees, and leave the rest to Waste Lands Boards.

Nothing is .more astonishing than the extraordinary perversity of human reason when biassed by personal or class prejudices. It might have been considered certain, with every day’s evidence before him, that a man capable of clear thought like Mr Reid would have seen that every one of these positions is contradicted by experience. Private enterprise has been one of the main incentives to destruction of vast acreage pf valuable timber, as is proved by the report of the rangers from every part of the Province. Private enterprise has led fco the wholesale destruction of wood by the axe and by fire: it has looked to the present and disregarded the future, Not. even the utter valuelessness of impeifectly grubbed and cleared land for other purposes than the reproduction of timber has caused the owners of thousands of acres of land to plant a tree \ nor has any prospective advantage caused a farmer to withhold the match from timber on his land; nor has responsibility to the Government stayed the squatter in his remorse-; less tiring of the forest, if needful to remove wood for his immediate interest. Private enterprise, too, steps in in another direction, and demands mono- , poly; and there is strong reason to be- 1 neve, from recent transactions within

this Province, that private enterprise finds its way to influence the decision of Waste Land Boards, so that one person maybe enriched by utilising forest, while another may be debarred from touching it. For all this, the public have to pay in the extra cost of timber for building and public works, and yet Mr Reid and others of his class of thinkers oppose remedial measures. His nostrum of private enterprise, where a public estate is concerned, is a mere playing into the hands and pockets of a few at the expense of the many. Then we are treated with the delightful inconsistency on the part of our Provincial Secretary, that while private enterprise is to monopolise the forests, dole out timber by the hundred feet to supply demand by the thousand ; enrich the individual by taxing the whole community in the higher price paid for building material and firewood through the withholding of timber from use that grows on land which ought never to have become private property ; the Government is to interfere with the trade of the seedsman, and present forest tree seed gratis to all who ask for it. We suppose doing that gratis, which a seedsman gets a living by, is not interfering with private enterprise : the Government may provide seed, but they are not to plant a tree—they are to find the material, and give the profit to the man who bought land. It is the old tale over again : give to the rich and make him richer, no matter that the money is taken out of the tea and sugar that feed the poor. Were men sincere in their administration of public affairs, instead of throwing impediments in the way of that policy that looks beyond their lifetime, but which is part of the lifetime of a nation, they would aid in means to leave the public estate more valuable than they found it, instead of seeking to alienate it for the benefit of a few men. There is not an acre of laud in Otago that will not j ield a rental, in a few years, equal to, if not greater than the present fee simple. Yet forest laud, as well as agricultural, is allowed to pass from public control for the merest trifle. Only this week land has been sold in the neighborhood at more than twenty times its original cost, and what better are the public whose industry and enterprise added value to the estate ? The man has reaped the advantage ; the community have no share in it—no return is made to them to extend the roads that gave it value : private enterprise only paid the money ; the community did the work. Just iu the same way the Provinces deal with their timber. It is time the Government stepped in to save the country. Jt was asked by one member, where was the difference between growing corn and growing timber. 1 ? Perhaps the Solon who put forth this to him, unanswerable argument, could not understand the difference between receiving an annual return on his outlay on a grain crop, and the possibility that from the first forest tree felled in his plantation, his coffin might be made for his burial : then whose would the revenue be ?