RAILWAY AND CANAL TRAFFIC ACT IN RELATION TO FORESTRY. 425 



XXVI. The Effect of the Raihoay and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, 

 in relation to Forestry. By A. T. Williamson, Corstorphine. 



The immense importance of our timber supplies is clearly 

 manifested by the magnitude of our imports, as shown in the 

 Board of Trade returns, which, with each succeeding year, display 

 an ever-increasing total, amounting in 1888 to the enormous 

 quantity of 6,321,333 loads, or, if computed in feet, a little over 

 three hundred millions of cubic measui'e. This certainly indicates 

 the remarkable progress and development of our national 

 industries ; but, alas ! it also exhibits, to some extent, the 

 deplorable results of the neglect of the subject of forestry, not 

 only by forgotten generations, but by those immediately pre- 

 ceding our own, in failing to give practical effect to the honest 

 consideration of making provision for the wants of succeeding 

 generations, by a replacement at least of the supplies which, 

 although handed down to them by their ancestors, they selfishly 

 utilised for their own necessities. 



It would be preposterous to suggest that the industrial demands 

 for timber at the present time could be conserved within ourselves, 

 or that our supplies could by any development of forestry be 

 made to meet the wants of the nation. Still it is an undeniable 

 fact that were the resoui'ces of the country utilised only to a 

 reasonable extent for the cultivation and production of timber, 

 the importation of such an enormous quantity as three hundred 

 millions of feet of timber annually would be quite unnecessary, 

 and much of the £20,000,000 sterling which we pay for it would 

 be saved to the nation. 



Many plausible arguments may be adduced in justification of 

 the action, or rather inaction, of those more intimately and 

 personally interested in the subject, for having brought the 

 country into the position of being unable to provide its proper 

 proportion of timber to meet our industrial wants. To many, 

 however, who are practically interested in the commercial aspect 

 of the question, the impression is that the economic side of 

 forestry has been made subservient, to a considerable extent, 

 to what are perhaps proper enough in their own sphere, — viz., 

 the sesthetic and scientific results, by those immediately engaged 

 in forestry operations. Had an equal amount of energy and con- 

 sideration been applied towards the removal of those obstacles 



