298 



CONSERVATION 



Professor Parsons continues : 

 "The law authorized the Commis- 

 sioner of State Forests to establish 

 schools of forestry and agriculture, 

 grant licenses to cut timber, and take 

 measures to preserve and improve the 

 forests of the colony. 



"The government in recent years has 

 shown an ever-increasing interest in 

 the preservation of the forests and the 

 planting of trees. In the financial 

 statement presented to parliament, July, 

 1902, the acting Premier said : 



"In pursuance of the decision of the gov- 

 ernment that the remaining areas of forest 

 in the colony should be conserved and dealt 

 with in a systematic manner, the government 

 have under consideration the whole ques- 

 tion of how best to deal with this impor- 

 tant matter. Special attention is being given 

 to the reservation of all forest upon the 

 mountains and higher table-lands to insure 

 the maintenance of rivers and streams, the 

 gradual distribution of rainfall, the protec- 

 tion of the surface of the country from 

 degradation, and the prevention of the de- 

 struction of lands in the valleys or their 

 deterioration by the deposit of detritus, 

 whilst maintaining the climatic equilibrium, 

 protecting the native flora and fauna, and 

 doing all that is possible to preserve the 

 beautiful scenery for which the colony is 

 famed. On a smaller scale, scenic effect is 

 being attended to by the reservation of forest 

 lands in gorges and on river banks and the 

 higher portions of the colony, so as to pre- 

 serve all places of natural beauty which 

 serve to make New Zealand attractive, espe- 

 cially from a tourist point of view. * * * 

 The government also have in contemplation 

 a large expansion of tree-planting opera- 

 tions; and it is fortunate that we possess 

 a large area of land in the central district 

 of the North Island which, though not well 

 adapted for agricultural and pastoral pur- 

 poses, is believed, as the result of trial 

 plantations, to be well suited to the growth 

 of vast forests of specially selected and val- 

 uable trees." 



A letter in American Industries, pub- 

 lished three years later than the book 

 above quoterl (May i, 1907), says, 

 among other things : "New Zealand is 

 having a period of great prosperity 

 on account of the high prices it is 

 receiving for its principal articles of 

 export. Agriculture and mining are 

 the pursuits which are turning in the 

 money." We may well believe that the 

 conservation of the forests, and the in- 



terests connected with them, bear their 

 full share in producing and maintain- 

 ing this prosperity ; and it should re- 

 quire no prophetic vision to foresee the 

 advantage which might accrue to the 

 United States or, in fact, to any other 

 nation which, in the midst of the pres- 

 ent forest holocaust, would conserve its 

 stock, and deliberately and systematic- 

 ally set about producing an additional 

 stock for its own future use, and for 

 sale to other peoples when, as Secre- 

 tary Wilson predicts, trees shall have 

 become "as scarce as diamonds." 



«r' ^ ^ 



Forest Taxation Again 



LIKE Banquo's ghost, the question 

 of forest taxation will not down. 

 We know that things can be taxed out 

 of existence ; that many things, as win- 

 dows in Old France, date trees in 

 Egypt, and dogs and saloons with us, 

 have thus been eliminated. We know 

 that forests are being taxed out of ex- 

 istence in this country every day. And 

 we know that the irrational system of 

 taxation which produces this effect 

 must give place to a rational system. 

 May the day of transition hasten ! 



The National Conservation Commis- 

 sion has taken up the question of forest 

 taxation. It insists that more equi- 

 table methods of taxing forest lands 

 should be introduced. To facilitate the 

 adoption of such methods it dis- 

 tinguishes sharply between the land and 

 the crop growing upon the land. Each 

 of these it would tax ; each it would 

 tax upon its value. The land it would 

 tax annually ; the crop but once. The 

 value of the land it would determine 

 by the value of its annual timber prod- 

 uct. The value of the timber would, of 

 course, be determined by its market 

 price. 



The time recommended for taxing 

 the timber is the time of harvesting it. 

 This is the one and only time when it 

 brings actual revenue to its owner ; 

 this is the time when the tax can easily 

 be paid. By collecting the tax at this 

 time only the owner is not driven, as 



