124 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Sir William Haldane. — "That is what I think should be 

 done." 



The Chairman. — " I think there is something to be said for 

 that. Would the meeting prefer to have the resolution put to 

 them, which could be passed, and then we could go on to the 

 discussion of the whole report afterwards?" 



Sir William Haldane. — " I cannot be here in the afternoon. 

 I am going away to keep an engagement made before this 

 meeting was called, and if you put the resolution in that way, 

 I should much like in a single word or two to express my 

 support of it." 



Sir John Stirling-Maxwell. — " I think I had better go on. I 

 may say, as a member of the Committee, that the proposal 

 for a Central Authority is an integral part of their scheme of 

 afforestation, and the whole thing was built upon it. I was 

 specially invited to speak on the subject here, and the fact has 

 been noted on the printed programme. I think Sir William 

 ought not to take exception to the subject being raised, and I 

 may assure him that I am not going to make a controversial 

 speech. 



"Since the Commission was established it has had complete 

 control of the funds and policy of forestry in Scotland. The 

 Commissioners were so good as to supply us with an account 

 of their work, which we examined very carefully. Let me say 

 in fairness that the Commission has been handicapped through- 

 out its work by a system under which responsibility has been 

 hopelessly divided and no room left anywhere for honest pride 

 or independent endeavour. It is therefore no aspersion on the 

 good intentions of the Commissioners to say that we found in 

 their record no trace of a coherent policy, only a list of sporadic 

 doles, and that forestry, put in the forefront by Mr Lloyd George 

 when the Commission was established, had fared very badly 

 as compared with other subjects, and that the bulk of the 

 money expended on forestry had gone to Ireland while Scotland 

 received very little. We came to the conclusion that forestry 

 would never make progress as a passenger in a crowded 

 omnibus, for that is what it came to, and we recommended 

 that the central control should be transferred to a real forest 

 authority composed of men versed in the subject, ready to make 

 it the work of their lives, and stand or fall by the result of their 

 labours. The need for such a central control is proved by a 



