FORESTRY IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SCOTLAND. 171 



1520 of them are directly dependent on the forest. The 

 remaining inhabitants are small tradesmen — saddlers, smiths, 

 etc. — or people employed in small agricultural industries, and 

 many of them are indirectly dependent upon the forest and the 

 work it brings to the district. 



For the profit the State is likely to make out of afforestation 

 I will refer you to Belgium, a country which has many points 

 of resemblance to ours. True, wages are lower in Belgium 

 than in Scotland, but the value of land is much higher ; in fact 

 the deduction made for the capital value of forest land in 

 Belgium is about double the price at which the Government 

 could buy similar land in Scotland. This more than cancels 

 the difference in wages. Mr Seebohm Rowntree, in his valuable 

 book on Land and Labour i?i Belgium, has investigated this 

 question. He is an ardent Radical, and may be taken as an 

 impartial witness. He reckons that the Belgian Government 

 obtains on the capital it has invested in forestry a return 

 varying from 4-9 per cent, to 5*5 per cent, on different classes 

 of soil. That is a modest return on a commercial venture, but 

 it does not sum up all the national advantage which the State 

 derives from forestry. I cannot put the point better than it is 

 put in the words of the Belgian chief inspector of forests, whom 

 the author quotes : " Ah, you English," said that official, "you 

 always want to know, will it pay ? In Belgium we look at the 

 matter diff"erently. We realise that the aff"orestation of waste 

 lands affords an enormous amount of healthy work for the 

 Belgian people, work required just when otherwise the men 

 would be unemployed. We realise the importance of providing 

 a large amount of home-grown timber, in view of the depletion 

 of the world's timber supply, and we think, too, of the beneficial 

 effects of forests, not only upon climate, but on the soil of the 

 waste lands, to the great advantage of the country." "Surely," 

 the author adds, "these considerations are important, and the 

 British people may learn from the Belgians the great possi- 

 bilities which lie in the afforestation of our enormous areas of 

 uncultivated land." 



