30 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



think it will be your duty to denounce it to the War Cabinet, 

 and, if necessary, to Parliament. 



Mr Acland. — "The last thing that the Authority wants, of 

 course, is to take a partisan view. But I entirely agree with 

 what Sir John Stirling-Maxwell says as to the facts. It really 

 is our duty to go into the facts very fully indeed, not merely to 

 listen to what is told us, but to form conclusions from the facts 

 themselves. That is, of course, what we ought to do, and shall 

 try to do. 



"There is no doubt whatever that, first of all, it is our duty, 

 according to the terms on which we are set up, if the Board of 

 Agriculture desire to continue the work in forestry, to work with 

 them ad interim until legislation is passed. We have already 

 satisfied ourselves beyond any possibility of doubt that if the 

 Forestry Department of the Scottish Board is to be made an 

 efficient administration for forestry, it has to be enormously 

 strengthened and developed. There is absolutely not in existence 

 a proper Forestry Department now. There is no doubt about 

 that. The Board at present has not a sufficient number of 

 trained or expert persons to do the work. In saying that I do 

 not wish to cast any reflections at all. 



"With regard to the schemes of replanting, acquisition of 

 land, setting up schools, advisory work on private estates, and 

 survey work, these should be started on a big scale, if the 

 Authority is worth setting up at all. The Board of Agriculture 

 does not pretend to be organised to be able to tackle them 

 We shall have to work through the Board at present, and no 

 doubt, so long as we do so, a department of the Board will act 

 as the Executive Department for Scotland. I think that must 

 mean a very great strengthening, a very great expansion of their 

 work, and we shall be able to assist from our funds. 



" In the programme supplied there is a heading on the 

 nature of the Permanent Authority to be set up. That is a 

 little in the nature of prophecy. We cannot say what the 

 Permanent Authority will do, but I know it is the view of 

 my colleagues on the Interim Authority that they themselves 

 ought not to do the Executive work. They ought to keep the 

 body and its staff small. Really the great bulk of the work 

 should be done in Scotland by a purely Scottish Executive, 

 manned by Scottish officers, and the Central Forest Authority 

 should only supervise in order to be certain that the same lines 



