STATE REGULATION OF CUTTINGS 715 



from the state itself, the original owners; (2) the amount of land 

 being incapable of increase, if the owners of large tracts can waste 

 them at will without state restriction, the state and its people may be 

 helplecsly impoverished and one great purpose of government de- 

 feated." 



From the few decisions to which I have referred, it can be deduced 

 that the domain of the police power is mutable coincidentally with the 

 changes in society, that is must appear convincingly to the court that 

 a public emergency, present or reasonably anticipative. exists that de- 

 mands a remedy not available without curtailing usually recognized 

 private rights of property or action, that the restrictions or limitations 

 placed upon individuals apply equally to all within the same prescribed 

 class or classes, and that the means adopted are reasonably designed to 

 attain the objects sought. 



In the gas and mineral water cases, the courts sustain the exercise 

 of the police power upon the ground that the prescribed acts impair 

 the equal rights of others possessing identical interests in a common 

 supply. In the cases prohibiting the removal of sand from the sea- 

 shore and restricting the cutting of trees on privately owned land; the 

 authorization for the use of this extreme power is placed on the broad 

 basis of the public necessity of adequate transportation and the pro- 

 tection of the water supply of the State. In modern society facile 

 means of transportation of men and commodities are absolutely in- 

 dispensable to human existence. Likewise if the flow of rivers ceases, 

 and lakes and ponds supplying such streams violently fluctuate from 

 flooded banks to shallow basins, the power propelling factories and 

 mills, and the waters for public and general consumption may become 

 so irregular and uncertain in their flow that industry would wane, 

 unem.ployment would increase, health would be impaired, fires would 

 destroy accumulated wealth, and the resources of the State would dis- 

 appear even as they have been destroyed by war. In like manner the 

 vast forests of the State have so disappeared from the activities of man 

 that the materials much used in constructing the homes of men are 

 obtainable only in more and more remote and inaccessible places and 

 have so risen in cost that, due in part to such conditions, thousands of 

 people are without homes suitable and proper for their physical, men- 

 tal and moral growth and welfare. 



If, therefore, it can be shown to the satisfaction of the Legislature 

 and the courts that the cutting of immature trees, coniferous or hard, 

 or both, on private lands, has so contributed, or is likely so to con- 



