95 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The President. — " We are much obliged to Colonel Suther- 

 land. He sat down very suddenly, and I thought we were 

 going to have some more. We have a great deal of confidence 

 in him." 



Colonel Fothringham, member of the Interim Forest 

 Authority. — " My Lord Duke and gentlemen : I have come here 

 from the Interim Forest Authority not because I have a great 

 deal to say, but because the Interim Forest Authority, on their 

 last visit to Edinburgh a short time ago, made a promise to this 

 Society that they would keep in close touch with the Society, 

 and they did not think that the Annual Meeting should be 

 allowed to pass without some representative from the Authority 

 being there. I think it was explained at that time, when several 

 members of the Authority came to Edinburgh, that the Authority 

 was purely interim. It is not perhaps altogether realised by a 

 good many people, who expect that a great deal of work will 

 some day be done and great responsibilities undertaken for the 

 future, that this body is purely interim, and that it cannot 

 commit any successor, any future body, which may be set up 

 by legislation, to a great deal for the future. I hope, however, 

 that it will not be very long before a permanent Authority is 

 set up. You were good enough, in your proposed resolution, 

 to make some reference to the Interim Authority, and it has 

 done, and is doing, a certain amount of work, but it is necessarily 

 very limited by the fact that it cannot make any commitments 

 for the future. The Interim Authority cannot either own land 

 or lease land or hold it in any shape or form, nor can it make 

 appointments which would last beyond its own tenure of life, 

 whatever that may be. It would be very difficult to try to get 

 the best men to accept appointments under the Interim Authority 

 if they had the idea that these appointments might finish in 

 six months or a year or anything of that sort, and they would 

 find themselves left without employment. That is one of the 

 chief difficulties we are up against — that we cannot make appoint- 

 ments that are absolutely necessary for carrying out any big 

 schemes. I am sure the Authority has your sympathy when 

 the difficulty is pointed out. 



"There are one or two matters in which the Authority has 

 been able to make some little progress. Colonel Sutherland 

 referred to the matter of schools. It has been considered 

 within the limits of its powers to make inquiries, at any rate, 



