3^ 



Society had been pressing on the Government for years. He 

 was glad to say that although only a few months had elapsed 

 since their Annual Meeting in Edinburgh, some progress had 

 to be recorded. There had been published within the last few 

 days a report on behalf of the Development Commissioners, 

 in which they laid down an outline of the policy of forestry 

 development for Scotland which, he thought, the Society should 

 be able to accept as being intelligent and comprehensive in its 

 character. That Development Grant, they should never forget, 

 was voted by Parliament, and one of the primary objects was 

 the development of forestry. Therefore, the movement in which 

 they were interested had a very early claim upon assistance 

 from that grant. The Development Commissioners had now 

 happily laid down a general outline of the kind of development 

 they consider possible which, he thought, the Society would be 

 able without much reserve to accept. Since their meeting in 

 Edinburgh, the Secretary for Scotland, in his capacity as 

 Minister for Scotland, had shown he was interested in the 

 movement. He had appointed a small Committee to formulate 

 a scheme which his Department might lay before the Develop- 

 ment Commissioners. That Committee was composed of seven 

 members, five of them being members of this Society, and three 

 of the five were members of Council, so that the Society might 

 claim to be adequately represented. The other two members of 

 Committee were men of eminence in other walks of life and men 

 of public spirit, who took a great interest in development in the 

 widest sense of the word. He thought the Society had reason 

 to be contented with the Committee which was at work. He 

 hoped before long that they would formulate a scheme for the 

 development of forestry, which the Secretary for Scotland 

 could lay before the Development Commissioners with some 

 hope of realising it. Of course, the Society had been working 

 too long at that movement to mistake words for deeds, but he 

 thought they had never had a Government so friendly to their 

 movement as the present one. Although, at their last meeting, 

 it fell to him as their President to state the wishes of the Society, 

 perhaps with rather brutal bluntness, at the same time he should 

 like to say that both the Secretary for Scotland and the Develop- 

 ment Commissioners wished the scheme well, and were sincerely 

 anxious to see forestry developed upon real lines. The 

 .Society would watch very carefully everything that was done in 

 that direction. He might add, for the benefit of the younger 

 memfjers who were there, that such a change as they saw now 

 in the attitude of the Government towards the forestry movement 

 was not the result of this year and last year, or the year before, 

 but the result of the work which the Society had been steadily 

 doing for more than a generation. It must be a great satisfaction 

 to some of the older members of the Society to feel that the work, 

 which has been going on through their energy so long, was at last 



