THE STATE IN RELATION TO FORESTRY. 135 



brought forward, we should now be well on the road to obtain 

 useful information for future guidance. 



The present system of levying rates and taxes is, to say the least 

 of it, unreasonable, if not unjust. Taxes should be assessed 

 according to the yield-capacity of the property, but what 

 actually takes place ? As soon as a piece of waste land has 

 been planted, in many cases the assessment is raised, although 

 no income can be expected for many years to come. On the 

 contrary, additional expenses have to be incurred, until, some 

 twenty or thirty years later, the thinnings commence. Surely, 

 such a procedure is unreasonable ! 



Then, there are the unfair railway rates. Imported timber is 

 carried to the places of consumption at lower rates than that 

 from British forests, even if the length of haulage is less in the 

 latter case. Cannot Parliament do something to remove such 

 an anomaly ? 



We have only too often seen cases in the papers in which 

 payment for damage to public roads was not only demanded 

 but actually given by the Courts, although the forest land 

 had paid rates and taxes for many years without using the public 

 roads at all. 



The last, but by no means the least, burden placed on forest 

 property results from the death duties. Indeed, they form one of 

 the chief reasons why afforestation has made such poor progress 

 of late years. Cases are known in which these duties had to 

 be paid twice within a few years. The duty has to be paid on 

 the value of the standing crop, which should not be looked at 

 as capital in the ordinary sense, but as an accumulated income 

 which the proprietor draws in one lot instead of taking it out 

 annually as in other concerns. Moreover, the woodlands have 

 only too frequently to pay the death duties of the whole estate ! 



For all these reasons, I maintain that in the past woodlands 

 have not been given a fair chance, and if the now existing 

 heavy burdens were lightened, there seems to me every 

 probability that private proprietors would participate on a liberal 

 scale in the work of afforestation, rather than see their land expro- 

 priated ; this would considerably reduce the enormous outlay 

 proposed by the Royal Commission. Unquestionable evidence 

 is available to show that there is no necessity for the State to 

 hold all forest lands in a country. This is of the utmost im- 

 portance, as it is clear that Parliament will think twice before it 



