294 



CA NADIANFORESTET. 



[Feb. 



Canadian timber lands. The rent of timber lands has been a source 

 of vast income to a small class, who are very powerful by reason 

 of their concentrated wealth. They have made vast fortunes by 

 purchasing land from the Government at very low prices, and 

 selling the privilege of cutting timber from those lands at 

 three or four times the whole cost of the land. Although many of 

 them have made great fortunes in this way, they naturally desire 

 to increase these fortunes still more ; and so long as a single pine 

 tree remains in this country uncut, their chances for making a large 

 profit on ' stumpage ' will still remain. Many of these gentlemen 

 are worth several million dollars each ; and they are still struggling 

 to obtain 'a modest competency.' We sympathize with their 

 anxiety to avoid the perils of starvation ; but the people of the 



Wil^RiigRa' 



United States can hardly afford to have their climate changed, their 

 rivers dried, and vast districts of the country ruined, for the sake of 

 -.adding to the prosperity of the men who are already millionaires." 



Should the reduction in this duty be made, however, it is not the 

 Canadian Government which will be the gainer, but the holders of 

 those leases, who, as Mr. Jack says, pay but a trifling sum for the 

 right to cut the most valuable timber. 



Should tliis duty be removed, then Canadian leaseholders who 

 have been making such fortunes out of the Government will find 

 their profits doubled. In view of this, it were well that the 

 Canadian Government should adopt some proper system of regulating 

 the charges to be imposed on timber cut on their lands, so that the 

 inducements for the rapid cutting away of their forests should be so 



