PERIODICAL LITERATURE 493 



"private property may yield excellent results also when ... a 

 continuous and considerable application of force may be needed to 

 bring its management up to a socially established ethical level," but 

 in proportion as the pressure must be increased, the advantages of 

 public property increase. That does not mean suppression of private 

 ownership of land, capital and private initiative: the growth of the 

 police power may suffice to regulate private management. "In the 

 case of forests, the civilized world now recognizes a large amount of 

 public ownership necessary;" mineral treasures and shores of har- 

 bors similarly. 



"Conservation, then, necessarily means more public ownership, 

 more public business ; this means a demand for better government ; 

 and this means giving men a real career in the public service." 



In conclusion, the author expresses the conviction that only through 

 commissions can conservation be put in practice, only general prin- 

 ciples being laid down by legislators. B. E. F. 



Conservation and Economic Theory. Transactions of the American Institute of 

 Mining Engineers, Vol. LIV, 1917, pp. 458-73. 



French foresters are beginning to discuss the 

 French lessons which the war has taught and the prob- 



Forestry lems which will come to them in the recupera- 



After War tion of the devastated forests in the war zone 



and elsewhere. 

 Demorlaine points out the essential need of re-establishing imme- 

 diately and rapidly the destroyed wood capital and the necessity of 

 assisting private owners in this with means and measures. Large wood 

 reserves have been used up by all belligerents, and France especially, 

 which could not, even before the war, supply itself fully with dimen- 

 sion material, will be in a precarious condition. Higher wood prices 

 than ever are foreshadowed after the war, when reconstruction begins. 

 This and the opportunity of remunerative use of money capital else- 

 where will have the tendency of inducing further inconsiderate reduc- 

 tion of growing stock, and calls for government interference, restric- 

 tion and expropriation. The assistance to private owners can be of 

 two kinds — immediate regulation of indemnities due the owners for 

 wood furnished during the war, in order to provide them with funds 

 for reforestation ; in other cases, to provide the necessary labor. There 

 seems to be no uniformity and some injustices perpetrated in requis- 



