EROSION AND AFFORESTATION ROYAL COMMISSION REPORT. 1 99 



duties are a serious burden on forest land. It has been 

 put forward as a reason why the State should undertake 

 afforestation, that the State never dies, and that consequently 

 no death duties have to be met. This would seem a very good 

 reason why the private owner should receive some equivalent 

 for this serious handicap. The system of levying rates and 

 taxes on woodlands surely needs revision. On many estates 

 the " machinery " available for carrying out forestry operations 

 is already in existence and only needs strengthening and 

 extending. There are people in want of work during the winter 

 months in most districts, and it should not be impossible to 

 devise some scheme whereby the private proprietor could 

 undertake a good deal of the afforestation necessary, or could 

 co-operate with the State in doing so. Opinion on forestry 

 matters has entirely changed during the past twenty years, and 

 a great many proprietors are now anxious to set about the 

 systematic management and extension of their woods. There 

 surely could be no great objection to the State advancing 

 money where necessary, at a low rate of interest, to private 

 owners, to be expended on planting operations, if proper security 

 were obtained. But to be of any practical value a much 

 cheaper method of carrying through negotiations for loans would 

 have to be devised than at present obtains for agricultural and 

 other estate improvements. 



Properly drawn up schemes would have to be made if money 

 were advanced by the State, and there could also be State advice 

 and supervision or periodical inspection. The difficulties and 

 drawbacks connected with the compulsory acquisition by the 

 State of land on a colossal scale, such as has been suggested, 

 would in this way be avoided. In most European countries 

 a great deal is being done by the State to assist private 

 afforestation. This policy seems at least equally necessary with 

 us where practically the whole of the forest land is privately 

 owned. 



In this work of worthily developing British forestry there 

 appears to be ample room for the energies both of the State 

 and of private individuals ; and the foregoing suggestions 

 indicate in a general way the writer's views of what part might 

 reasonably be undertaken by each in the immediate future. 



As has been already noted, the striking recommendations of 

 the Royal Commission, in their Report, have had the effect of 



