136 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



sanctions an expenditure which will amount to more than 

 ;^4oo, 000,000 by the end of eighty years, and that the 

 forcible expropriation of some 9,000,000 acres of land would 

 create a storm, which no Government in this country could 

 weather, be it Liberal or Conservative ! 



Practical politics clearly indicate that the State, private 

 proprietors, and Corporations must co-operate in this scheme, 

 and the proposed law should be shaped accordingly. In the • 

 first instance, the proprietor should have the chance of doing 

 the work himself; next he should have the opportunity of joint 

 action with the State by contributing the land; and then the 

 State should acquire the land necessary to make up the area 

 which it is proposed to afforest annually. This should be done, 

 whenever possible, by private treaty, but compulsory powers 

 may be required, so as to secure the lands which are necessary 

 for the benefit of the community as a whole. 



As indicated above, the State must take certain matters 

 under its own management, but it should never go beyond 

 what is absolutely necessary. If, in our case, the State were 

 ultimately to hold half the total forest-area, this would suffice to 

 secure all the timber required by the country. 



I now come to the question of a,reas. The Royal Com- 

 missioners give (apart from material which cannot be grown 

 in this country) close on 9,000,000 tons as the quantity annually 

 imported <if late years, and they propose to provide all that 

 timber at home, by the afforestation of an additional area of 

 9,000,000, acres. Nobody, however, ever suggested that the 

 whole of the present imports would fall away ; what has been 

 predicted was that a serious reduction in the imports would 

 come as time went on, and especially in the larger sizes and 

 better qualities, owing to the gradual reduction of the amount of 

 such timber available for export in foreign countries. Of the 

 smaller sizes there will, in all probability, always be a con- 

 siderable import; hence there is no necessity to afforest so 

 large an area as 9,000,000 acres. The utmost area which I 

 suggested in previous publications was 6,000,000 acres, and 

 probably 5,000,000 would meet the case. If, nevertheless, the 

 Commissioners proposed the larger area, they did so because 

 they thought it would provide more labour. While they thus 

 strengthened their case in one direction, they weakened it in 

 another. 



