122 TRANSACTIONS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



In my experience of committees it is very unusual to 

 find fourteen people who are unanimous upon a subject. 

 I think it strengthens the report very much. There are just 

 two reservations, one by Mr Bromley, with whom I happen to 

 be acquainted. I do not think he is a practical forester, and 

 probably one of the reasons of his reservation was that he 

 thought it would be more economical to strengthen the existing 

 Boards of Agriculture than to set up a new Central Authority 

 as suggested by the Committee. That was his view. The other 

 view is very ably stated under the signature of Lord Lovat, 

 than whom I suppose there are few people at present who have 

 more practical experience or more expert knowledge. They 

 simply split upon the point of the authority. Now, I am bound 

 to say — it is to be spoken about by others, but I do want to say — 

 for my part — that I personally favour a Central Authority. It 

 seems to me that if you have an authority, which will have forestry 

 as its one and only business, that authority will push on forestry, 

 whereas the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Board of 

 Agriculture for Scotland, and the Board of Agriculture in 

 Ireland are very much occupied with other business, principally 

 agricultural, the improvement of stock and other kinds of things, 

 and I do not see how you could expect such Boards, with the 

 best will in the world, to push on all these things so well as one 

 which devotes its whole time and energy to one object. 



"As to the cost, the Committee have gone into this carefully 

 and have estimated that an expenditure of ;z{^i 5,000,000 would 

 render this country safe from any danger of famine as regards 

 the mines in forty years, and would render us independent of 

 all foreign supplies for housing and shipbuilding at the end 

 of eighty years. Now that is a very important thing. If 

 a committee, constituted as this one is, unanimously decided 

 that the adoption of their scheme will safeguard this country 

 from any risk of timber famine by the expenditure of some 

 ^{^15, 000, 000 spread over forty years — which, after all, is what 

 we are spending in two days just now — I think Parliament can 

 hardly refuse to carry out the recommendations that have 

 been made. The country owes a debt of gratitude to this 

 Committee for the very able way in which they have laid their 

 recommendation before the public, and I can only hope they 

 will be adopted and put into force as soon as they possibly can 

 once this war has come to a conclusion." 



