672 



AMERICAN FURESTRV 



or amendment. It points the way to 

 a policy that we believe to be good and 

 should be given a full and fair trial. Its 

 errors can be corrected when they have 

 been found by actual test ; its .good 

 points can be strengthened and de- 

 veloped to the nation's great profit. 



The states directly concerned are 

 stirring into action. The co-operation 

 of the United States through the estab- 

 lishment and management of national 

 forests as the center of a system of 

 national, state and private forests 

 throughout the eastern mountains will 

 be of- the highest value. The Weeks 

 bill makes this possible. The people of 

 the country ask the Senate not to de- 

 lay an unnecessary hour in putting this 

 bill upon the statute books. 



iii «r' ^ 



The "Ultimate Consumer" 



THE Neiv York Times recently ex- 

 horted its readers editorially to 

 dwell less upon those, ironically called 

 "villains," who develop natural re- 

 sources for profit, and more upon the 

 consumer and his troubles. "The friends 

 of conservation," it said, "need to think 

 more about the ultimate consumer," and 

 added that "if conservation is ever to be 

 truly popular, it must in some manner 

 operate toward cheapness." 



But, if anything is clear, in lioth his- 

 tory and economics, it is that nothing 

 whatever W'ill "o])erate toward chcap-_ 

 ness" with natural resources, except 

 national retrogression. As long as sup- 

 plies are abundant, national advance,, 

 with increase of population and a 



rise in the level of efficiency, neces- 

 sarily means a generally higher stand- 

 ard of living and a larger absolute and 

 per capita demand for commodities ; 

 and these, in turn, bring a heavier drain 

 on resources and powers of all sorts. 

 In response to the law of supply and 

 demand, prices rise accordingly. Nor 

 is the tendency reversed by increased 

 production, because production is al- 

 ways costlier than exploitation. With 

 natural resources which cannot be pro- 

 duced, the inevitable outcome is a 

 shortage, while history shows that in 

 prosperous countries even the forests, 

 the chief renewable resource, steadily in- 

 crease in value under the most conserv- 

 ative and scientific methods of produc- 

 tion, as, for example, in Germany. The 

 conclusion is obvious enough. Higher 

 prices for all raw materials are an in- 

 variable concomitant of economic and 

 industrial ])rogress. More than that, 

 prices must sooner or later be raised 

 deliberately in order to defray produc- 

 tion cost and conservation charges, or 

 else they will be cruelly forced up- 

 ward by a famine of resources. 



In other words, unless the consumer 

 contributes his share toward supplying 

 his necessities by investing in the pro- 

 cess of ])roducing and maintaining 

 them, he must consume without pro- 

 ducing, at constantly greater ex])ense, 

 and in the long run the store of re- 

 sources must certainly be devoured. 

 Then the ultimate consumer, ultimate 

 indeed, will pass permanently from 

 the scene with the exhaustion of the 

 resources he has consumed. It is a 

 case of productive and conservative out- 

 lay now, or eventually going without. 



