RAILWAY AND CANAL TRAFFIC ACT IN RELATION TO FORESTRY. 427 



cannot be exjDected to be placed in such a position as to success- 

 fully compete with Scandinavian " sawn " timber, because of the 

 unfavourable conditions in which we are placed in river intercom- 

 munication as compared with Norway and Sweden, unless our 

 forests were so extensive as to permit, with propriety, the 

 construction of the most modern and powerful machinery on 

 the spot where the timber is cultivated. With these fOr the 

 jiurpose of conversion into battens and scantlings, and thereafter 

 seasoning them on the ground, the new Eailway Act would 

 apply with equal force, as in the case of that branch of the 

 fir trade to which reference is about to be made. In pass- 

 ing it may here be remarked that the increasing commercial 

 interest now being taken in this subject, and the strenuous efforts 

 that are being put forth for the advancement of forestry and the 

 Government recognition of it, indicates that events are developing 

 towards the time when proprietors, or commercial lessees, will 

 possess forest tracts of sufficient extent, continuously and in per- 

 petuity, as to offer a speculative attraction for the construction of 

 permanent saw-mill machinery for the manufacture of timber of 

 equal quality to foreign. The timber being dry, and subject only 

 to carriage on the useful article, relieved of all waste and super- 

 fluous timber, competition will not only become possible, but 

 highly probable, and for all or nearly all industrial purposes 

 Scots fir battens are equal in quality to Scandinavian goods, 

 while in many cases they ai'e far superior. 



The branch of the trade, however, which will be most bene- 

 ficially affected is that which is connected with the mining 

 industries. Some idea of the immense consumption of the raw, 

 unmanufactured material may be formed, when it is known that 

 to the Firth of Forth, the chief emporium for Scotland, some- 

 where about ten mOlions of cubic feet of mining timber, chiefly 

 pit-props, are annually imported. These come in small sizes, 

 vai'ying from 2| inches in diameter and upwards, and from 2 feet 

 in length up to 20 feet. The timber after arrival in this 

 country is subject to railway cari'iage, and very frequently has 

 to be conveyed long distances to the coal-fields of Lanark- 

 shii-e, Ayrshire, Fifeshire, and elsewhere. The fact that these 

 foreign imports of pitwood have been peculiarly favoured by 

 preferential railway rates, must be the principal reason why the 

 position of the home produce should have hitherto been so veiy 

 much prejudiced and made unable to compete as regards price 



