THE STATE FORESTS BILL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4171, 3 August 1874, Page 3

THE STATE FORESTS BILL.

In an article on the subject of this Bill, the Ota'jo Daily Times says : —“ The warmest thinks of the Colonists of New Zealand are due to Mr. Vogel, for the earnest and thorough manner in which he has taken up the important subject of the Conservation of Forests. The subject is as difficult as it is important, and must have cost the Premier much labor of a character which a man in his position jnight have been vfell excused for shrinking from, The results of this labor are now before the public in the form of a voluminous State Paper and the New Zealand Forests Bill, both ; of which do credit to his discernment and industry. If the scheme for the conservation of the forests of this country which has approved itself to his mind, should not prove to be in all its details the wisest and most complete that can be devised, this will in no way detract from the honor in which his labors on the subject will be held by future'generations of colonists. And in any criticisms of the measure he has launched which may be indulged in by his contemporaries, we feel sure that one and all will concur in according to him the highest praise for the pains which ho has taken, not only to render it as perfect : as possible, but also to supply the means by which we may judge of the necessities of the occasion, and of the probability of his scheme proving actually serviceable to the country." In a second article on the same subject, and in special reference to the Premier’s speech on the introduction of the Bill, the Daily Times says :—“ When the head of, the Government, on introducing a measure of great public utility, half invites those who may bo critically disposed to delay the final consideration of it to another session, we naturally look for some great complication of detail, or some startling principle in the Bill, sufficient to make its passage through the House, if pressed, at least doubtful. What were we to find in the New Zealand Forests Bill answering to either of these elements of procariousness in its probable career through Parliament ? On first handling the Bill itself, this question repeated itself in our minds with increased force. Measures like the Insolvency Bill break down year after year through their own sheer mass; but the Bill

before us has but twenty-nine clauses, and most of these are short, and, considered as products of the pen of a Parliamentary draughtsman, actually petty and definite as short. There could be no longer question of the Bill being delayed because of the complication and mass of its details being too much for the assimilating powers of hon. members. The other alternative, therefore, appeared to be the only one open, and we were therefore not in the least surprised when, on turning to the Bill itself, we found that it contained, in addition to provisions for talcing care of our existing forests and for planting new ones, several provisions which we had not dreamed of finding under, the laconic title of the New Zealand Forests Bill, 1574. Here, at length, we have that long-dreaded thingproposed—a resumption of control of waste lands by the General Government. Here are also in a few short sentences, all the provisions for charging to. the Provinces the cost of the railways which the General Government may construct within them, and for making the payments of sinking funds on the debts incurred for the purpose of constructing such railways payable out of Provincial revenues. More than this : even the interest on these railway debts is not to be a charge on the Provinces for more than thirty years to come—after A.D. 1904 ‘ all liabilities in respect of such loans raised by the Colony, and expended in or about the construction or maintenance of railways in excess of annual surplus of receipts over expenditure shall, as between such Provinces and the Colony, be solely Colonial liabilities.’ All this, sensible as it is, is undoubtedly sufficiently startling and unexpected to account easily for the Premier’s diffidence about pressing his measure through Parliament during the present session. With him, we think that it would be wisest to pass the Bill at once ; but we cannot ignore the fact that the attempt to deprive the Provincial Governments of a little of their authority (would that we could think it likely to be but ‘brief authority ’) in the matter of the waste lands, even though the pill be covered with the splendid gilding we' have described, will arouse at once a hundred jealousies, and array all that is little and narrow in the minds of honorable members of both Houses against a scheme which, taken in its entirety, we unhesitatingly pronounce to be one of the finest efforts of Mr. Vogel’s genius." In a third article, the same journal says ; “From what we have already stated as to the character of the provisions for creating and maintaining State forests contained in the Bill introduced by Mr. Vogel, it will be evident that its author intends this scheme to be a thorough one, and that it shall be thoroughly carried out. The efforts which our own Waste Lauds Board has recently been making to prevent the wasteful use of timbered land by those to whom it grants its licenses are good in their way, and it is much to be regretted that scarcely anything similar has been done in the same direction before, either in this Province or elsewhere. These efforts, however, are necessarily rather in the way of regulating the destruction of our forests than consenting them. It would be simply impossible, we believe, to do anything practical in the latter direction in a partial way—only from a comprehensive scheme such as the Premier has now launched, can actually profitable and permanent results be expected. Forest creation must of necessity go hand in hand with forest conservation in New Zealand. Which of the two' is the more important, we can scarcely say, until practical experience obtained under the guidance of men instructed in the art of forestry has demonstrated for us whether it be or be not possible to conserve, and at the same. time utilise, the indigenous forests of the Colony. If the planting of forests is to be carried on successfully, it must be under the management of a permanent department. No fitful work will succeed, no partial experiments made on the public account and left to the supervision of the ordinary governing bodies expected (even if partially successful in some respects) to be profitable to the State. And, above all, no work that is not persistently followed up, no scheme that has not the element of permanence about it, can yield a reasonable return for the money and trouble to be expended upon it. Evidently, then, if State forestry is to be a success in New Zealand, it must be confided to a department such as that which the Bill before us contemplates the establishment of. Not only is it impossible for each Province to take the matter up with thoroughness for itself, and bear the initial expenses involved'in such a course, but such multiplication of officers and systems as this would occasion would go a long way by overweighting such a scheme to cause it to break down, and be thrown aside. Under one management, if the right men be secured as departmental officers, there can be little doubt the Department of State Foi’ests will become one of tire most important of any, and the forests themselves one of the most important sources of the revenue of the Colony.”