DEPUTATION TO THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND. 69 



coming was rather that I should listen to you than that you 

 should listen to me. In other words, you desire that in the 

 days of my comparative Departmental youth I should be fed 

 with the true milk of the word. Bearing that in mind, the 

 observations I shall address to you will be exceedingly brief. 

 I do not know that I need assure you — I think it is probably 

 unnecessary to assure you — of my interest in this subject. I can 

 claim not only to be interested in forestry, but to have a little 

 knowledge of it — very amateur knowledge, which, having regard 

 to what Sir John Stirling Maxwell said about Sir William 

 Haldane, will probably be regarded as really worthless. At the 

 same time, as Sir Kenneth Mackenzie will remember, both he 

 and I know a good deal about a county — Ross shire — which in 

 the days of my youth took a leading part in forestry, and I do 

 not think it would have been possible for any one brought 

 up as I was for many years in that county, and associating, I 

 may add, from time to time with Mr Munro Ferguson of Novar, 

 as he then was, to escape taking a certain interest at least in 

 the subject. His enthusiasm for silviculture was contagious, 

 and I am not at all sure that I escaped the infection. However, 

 I quite recognise, apart from the interest of the subject, its 

 supreme importance. I am at one with you there. I quite 

 recognise the possibility of retaining, or perhaps I should say 

 regaining, the supremacy in forestry which Scotland at least 

 in the past enjoyed, and therefore the question really resolves 

 itself into one of ways and means. We are agreed, all of us, 

 with regard to the object in view, and, therefore, it resolves 

 itself into a question of how that object can best be achieved. 

 Well, now, when you are considering ways and means, 

 there are two matters of importance — the one machinery, 

 and the second policy. As regards the machinery by which our 

 common object can be attained, two suggestions have been 

 made. The one suggestion is that there should be an indepen- 

 dent and separate Department of Forestry established in Whitehall 

 with jurisdiction in England, as well as in Scotland, and 

 that that Department should take full and exclusive control of 

 forestry. Well, that is a very important proposal which deserves, 

 and which I doubt not will receive the very fullest considera- 

 tion. I am not at the moment prepared to say whether I assent 

 to or dissent from the proposal. I have not had an opportunity of 

 studying it with sufficient care to enable me to pronounce a final 



