638 Hon. Ivor Churchill Guest [May 21, 



no satisfactory opening there, no prospect of rising, are continually 

 deserting the villages where they were born and flocking into the 

 cities ? And when they r>Bach the city, do they not, by the operation 

 of an economic law, displace and tread under those who are not quite 

 so strong or quite so young, and take for themselves their share of 

 the total store of sustenance availal)le ? 



Here I wish to make it clear that my Commission, on which I 

 believe every shade of political opinion is represented, was absokitely 

 decided in the view that any scheme of afforestation financed by the 

 State should be carried out on a strictly economic basis, although inci- 

 dentally it, and we believe, would further philanthropic ends. We 

 contemplate a business, and not a philanthropic venture, from which, 

 according to our calculations, the State would reap a handsome profit, 

 direct and indirect ; that it must benefit those who need work is an 

 extra advantage, which may, it is true, recommend it to the country, 

 and on this ground alone we hope that it will be put into force. Let 

 it be clearly understood, however, that we do not propose a new 

 system of poor law relief, or that any man should be employed who is 

 not willing and able to give a fair day's work for a fair day's wage. 

 But independently of all outside considerations, the evidence to which 

 we have listened and the actuarial estimates that we have made, bring 

 us to the conclusion that afforestation in the United Kingdom will 

 stand on its own feet as a commercial enterprise. Now I do not pro- 

 pose to inflict many figures upon you, and indeed those involved in 

 this matter might frighten you or even empty this hall were I to read 

 them all, so I will only state the end of the matter, which, unhappily 

 none of us who are gathered here can possibly live to see, since a 

 crop of timber takes eighty years to grow, and ere it can be planted 

 and reaped, this generation will long have been gathered to its 

 fathers. 



If the full scheme that we have propounded were accepted — and 

 here I may state the Treasury may, with confidence, be relied upon 

 to cut it down if it wishes, in which case the receipts and expenditure 

 must be reduced pro tanto — the annual sum required would be two 

 milHon pounds. This, we suggest, should be raised by loan, since it 

 is not fair that one generation should bear all the burden whilst the 

 next and subsequent generations reap all the profit. If the capital 

 required were obtained in this fashion, the net deficit, inclusive of 

 the interest on the loan — which, we hold, should be defrayed out of 

 taxation — would, in the first year, amount to ninety thousand pounds. 

 By the fortieth year the figures would be much more formidable, the 

 deficit in that year totalling something over three million pounds. 

 After that the transformation scene begins, for the forests become 

 self-supporting — or, in other words, all outgoings are met by 

 incomings ; and, in the eightieth year, the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer of the day, if such an official then exists, will rejoice as 

 men rejoice in harvest, for he will enter into an income of about 



