NATIONAL FOREST FINANCES 601 



Summary If the use is of a commercial character and does not benefit 



the forest, a small settler who uses the land (in accordance 

 with free use policy) or agriculture (evidently a preferred 

 occupation) then partial rates do not appear to be justified. 



3. Full Payment 



Kind of Resource Analysis of Full Payment 



Timber The charges for this resource, if for commercial use, are already 



based upon the full appraised value, a policy which originated 

 with Congress. 



The foregoing synopsis was prepared for an eminent authority on 

 economics, in order to give him an idea of the present Government 

 policy. His name has been purposely withheld but his review which 

 follows is of wide interest to the profession : 



"In general, I should say that it is a sound principle for a service 

 belonging to the nation to charge full rate, except where a different 

 policy would clearly and definitely be to the advantage of the nation. 

 This would imply that, in general, full commercial rates should be 

 charged for undertakings where the chief object is profit. 



"There is evidently involved in the minds of those who have 

 developed the policies which you detail, another consideration, namely, 

 the encouragement of the small man. This may well be brought under 

 the general principle of national advantage, as it is distinctly against 

 public policy to encourage inequality in wealth. Nevertheless this 

 subsidiary principle of helping the poor is one, the limits of which, 

 I should imagine, would be extremely difficult to confine. It ought, 

 therefore, to be used, I should say, cautiously and only in extreme 

 cases. It is true that even in private life a surgeon will charge lower 

 rates to the poor, and free dispensaries are provided by organizations 

 and cities for the poor. Sometimes the poor are favored in respect 

 to the price of necessities, such as milk, bread, or coal. But outside 

 of such fields as those mentioned the principle of one price for all 

 still holds. By stretching terms, we may perhaps say that the charge 

 which the Government makes, called taxes, is definitely adjusted ac- 

 cording to the means of the citizen. If this principle were extended 

 universally, the inequalities of wealth would be theoretically effaced 

 completely, everyone being charged the price befitting his income, 

 whatever be the commodity or service charged for. 



"This would be the ideal of socialism and a socialist might say 

 that the only reason that we are all charged in general the same price 

 for, say a yard of cloth, is that, in an individualistic society, supply 

 and demand prevent discrimination in favor of the poor. In other 

 words, it might be said, that the one-price-for-all system obtains in 

 general, not because it is right, but because it cannot be helped. The 

 rich man who found himself charged a higher price per yard for 

 cloth than the poor man would claim poverty, or make his purchases 



