THE OUTLOOK OF THE WORLD'S TIMBER SUPPLY. 381 



Canada and Australasia. The question is, no doubt, beset by 

 great difficulty, but where there is the will there is also a way. 

 Above all, let the self-governing colonies consider a little more 

 seriously than up to date, the magnificent example which has 

 been set to them by India, where the preservation of the State 

 forests has now been put on a safe basis, for the everlasting 

 benefit of the people of the country and the Indian exchequer. 

 This is a case on which I should have liked to enlarge had time 

 permitted it. 



But should we not begin by setting our house at home in order 

 before we go and preach abroad 1 The imports into the United 

 Kingdom in 1899 are valued at £25,000,000, and they have 

 increased of late years at the rate of 332,000 tons, valued at 

 £919,000, annually. T think I have said enough to-night to 

 show on how precarious a footing future supplies rest. 



The price of timber is steadily, though slowly, rising, and 87 

 per cent, of the total imports consist of pine and fir timber, the 

 sources of which are specially exposed to exhaustion. Whence 

 are we to obtain the 9,000,000 or 10,000,000 tons of coniferous 

 timber, when the countries round the Baltic, and perhaps also 

 Canada, have commenced to fail us? These are the timbers 

 which form the very staff of life of our building trade, and a 

 deficiency of supply in this direction must have the most serious 

 effect upon the population of these islands. And all the time we 

 have sufficient, and more, surplus land at home to produce all this 

 timber without putting a single acre out of cultivation. There 

 are 12,000,000 acres of waste land and 13,000,000 acres of 

 mountain and heath land to choose from the necessary 6,000,000 

 or 7,000,000 acres. Surely £25,000,000 going out of the country 

 every year is money enough to take some trouble about. Only a 

 few weeks ago The Times drew special attention to the fact that 

 our imports greatly exceeded the exports, a circumstance which fills 

 a good many people with misgivings. And here is an item valued 

 at £25,000,000, which could be produced at home, going begging. 



Whenever measures of extended afforestation have been urged, 

 the reply has generally been that the British woodlands are main- 

 tained for other purposes, and not for economic reasons, and that 

 woodlands in these islands do not pay. As regards the first of 

 these two arguments, very well, let it be so. I do not want to 

 touch a single acre of the existing woods (though they could be 

 so managed as to give a revenue, without interfering with shoot- 



