24 PROTECTION OF PLANTS, 1921-22 



again, that our forest rosoiirces have suffered grievously and in the future 

 will suffer still more grievousl}^ from the inertia of a fixed idea. 



Gradually the reaction from the feeling of over- confidence with regard to 

 forest supplies set in. The hinterlands were being explored and the notion 

 that they were densel}^ forested was exploded. The effect of the awful 

 devastation by forest fires on future supplies was slowly soaking into the public 

 conscience. This feeling of uncertainty as to the future was common to 

 Canada and the United States and it culminated in the establishment of 

 Commissions of Conservation in both countries in 1908 to 1909. 



The Commission in the United States was established before that in 

 Canada, but om-s lived longer, being strangled to death only last year. The 

 leaders in the United States were such men as the then President Roosevelt, 

 Gifford Pinchot, Judge Taft, and in Canada, the then Premier Sir Wilfrid 

 Laurier, Sir Clifford Sifton and the late Senator Edwards. The period was 

 characterizec by a stock-taking of all resources — a very simple and fundamental 

 idea,, the first step in any private business organization, but one that, for some 

 obscuro reason, always meets with opposition, especially from politician's, when 

 apphed to pubhc organizaticns. We shall never know what it is necessary 

 to do for our forests, for example, until we know what we possess in terms of 

 present capital stock and its rate of natural accretion in relation to the present 

 and probable future harvests of timber and pulpwood. The late Commission 

 of Conservation was the only organization that ever attempted such investiga- 

 tions on a Dominion wide basis — and it was cut down in the dark before its 

 work was completed. 



After the Great War we were ver\' humble, but at the same time very 

 proud of the Empire's achievements. We are finding out by sad experience 

 in our industrial and social relations that some of the most important results 

 of the war were not the most obvious at the time of its cessation. Among 

 other things the war taught us the value of the Empire's forests and, as you 

 know, the Canadian Forestry Corps was a very important factor in winning 

 the war. The importance of the forest as an auxiliary unit in warfare led 

 Great Britain to establish a Forestry Sub-Committee as a part of its great 

 Reconstruction Committee that did such magnificent work in meeting the 

 changed requirements of peace. The Forestry Committee reported upon the 

 forest conditions in all parts of the Empire and formulated plans for a great 

 reforestation program, involving the planting of 1,700,000 acres and the expen- 

 diture of $75,000,000. In the case of Canada, after pointing out the depen- 

 dence of Great Britain upon the forests cf the Dominions, especially these of 

 Canada, describing the efforts of the various forestry organizations, and urging 

 the extending and the speeding up of their work, the Committee makes this 

 statement: ''The forest capital of Canada is growing less year by year. This, 

 we submit, is an Imperial question of first magnitude which deserves immediate 

 attention of the Imperial and Dominion Governments." As the result of 

 the recommendations of this Committee, an Imperial Forestry Conference was 



