SQUANDERING A NATION'S PATRIMONY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3020, 21 November 1891, Page 5 (Supplement)

SQUANDERING A NATION'S PATRIMONY.

0 At the recent celebration of the Fourth m July at v\ oodstoofc, Conn., .Mr Mural Hals rend delivered a striking: addre-s, ,m which he gave the title of the " I're.sirvation of tho People's Inheritance. I could be more accurately desnib: ■d as an account of the reckless way in which mankind in general, and Americans in particular, liad .squandered, mid weie continuing' to squander, their inheritance. In speaking of the decline of eert.in nations, Mr Halstead says .-—The lands have been wasted, the' forests are 110 more, the soil that once made fruitful hills and blooming valleys is at the bottom of the seas, and the stream:- that watered the peopled plains are lost in the sands that are tile tombs of the profligates who have perished. Tho elements of possibility, the foundations of prosperity, are gone, never to be restored, and those cancers of (ho earth, the de-si'it-i, are eating away more and more that which should sustain the generations to e-ene. Coming down to our own eountrv, the ■speaker referred to the exhausted fertility of tobacco lands and wheat, li -lds ; to the extermination of food, fis'i and uoblu game and w.iter fowl ; mrticul niy to our vanishing forests, l'lie woods Jnve been torn from the mountains, and brooks have departed because the sprint's have ceased to flow ; and, when not dwindled almost to dust beds, the ancie t mill streams are roaring floods, for tho slopes of the ridges are bared and toe rainfalls rush from llietu as over roofs of slate ; the hillsides are ploughed up and down, preparing gutters to fed th frcahlets with tho soil (hat, is fir ni'T" prouioii.-, in tin- e;,es „f th-».-v who have been taught tho art of seeing than the precious metals. It is the passion and pride of the average American to stniic the trees and shoot the tiinls ami slaughter die fast running snm»— and it there are laws for the protection of trees in parks, or game lmvs to save thquail and squirrel, or to prevoot souring the rivers with seines out of season, and to provide fish Judders antl abolish fish traps, they are regarded an tvrmnieil a style of oppression identified only with efl'eto monarchies and the tnfteriiu despotism of worn-out worlds "I'll • buf frtlo have been exterminate], a n-ible r>i<murdered, so that there are hardly enotu. to supply museums : and if there is » mouse left 111 Maine he has uo>-:. accidentally spared, and must bo put'-ue ' by the hunter with remorsele-s fury to shed his blood to tho final massacre' It is a crime to cut down the woods .m a mountain, a crime to heedlessly kind : - fires to burn forests ; but our people hav. no realising sense of the sort, and sneer at tho Swiss and Germans, who requite three permit:' to fell one tree. In .now York there is a struggle that Poems hopeless to preserve the remnants of the once majestic and always romantic Adirondack wilderness. ]n our new states the statesmen daro not stand against the timber thieves. In some parts of the address Mr Halstead's rhetoric was rather too intense for scientific accuracy ; but after all, the real thing of the indictment is in its truthTo the speaker's hopeful spirit the eslab. lishment ot fish hatcheries by the Government. the effort (o protect (ho seals of Retiring Sea, and the reservation of the Sequoia groves were acts which gave promise of a time coming when more serious thoughts would bo given by our nation to the preservation of its heritage. He noted, too, as hopeful indications,that arbour days were celebrated in many States ; that tree planting by children had become fashionable, and that the discussion over the Adiroudook woods although it might not save the wildner ness, would ultimately, perhaps, save many others forests. Wo feel inclined to consider it another che Tiin.' sign that an orator of national repute has felt impelled on that anniversary when Americ ns are in their most exultant mood, to raise his voice in earnest protest against the reckless {destruction of our forests. No higher public service can bo rendered by tho country's leading men than the reitoration of warning like this, until it, coiines to bo universally understood wha tho ruin of our forests mean.—Gar/hit and Forc.it.