AUSTRALIAN FORESTRY. 125 



These figures include tan bark but not paper pulp or paper. 

 Paper pulp is little imported now, but is to be soon on a con- 

 siderable scale. Australia is now losing about ;^25o,ooo yearly 

 over tan wattle bark. This is included in the total of _;^8, 000,000. 



These figures are founded on the published official statistics. 

 They are discussed at page 259 of my " Report on Australian 

 Forestry" which is now before the Government of Western 

 Australia. 



It must be remembered that Australia never had any large 

 area of good forest, such as have countries with a more abundant 

 rainfall like North America ; and that in following the American 

 example of an indiscriminate clearing of the forest for settlement, 

 Australia was following a suicidal policy like cutting the dykes 

 of Holland and letting in the sea. In my West Australian forest 

 report, mentioned above, is given a rainfall map showing that 

 the total area of country in extra-tropical Australia with a 

 rainfall sufficient to carry good timber was never more than 

 \\ times the total area of the British Isles; and of this area 

 only a fraction could economically be spared for the permanent 

 forests of the country. What that fraction was should of course 

 have been determined by a national forest demarcation. 

 Ribbentrop, Vincent, and every Indian forester who visited 

 Australia exhorted forest demarcation. Gamble, when editing 

 the Indian Forester and reviewing Australian administration 

 reports, urged it repeatedly. But their warnings were lost in the 

 whirl of parochial politics, and now comes the consequence 

 which the present generation has to face. 



I have calculated that if Australia were to do now as South 

 Africa did in 1883 and put its forests in order, it would take 

 some thirty years to do so ; that is to say, before Australia 

 could supply its wants in hardwoods and softwoods, during the 

 thirty years there will be an inevitable loss (allowing interest 

 at 4 per cent.) amounting to the huge figure of ;^588,ooo,ooo. 

 This is the sum which Australia must inevitably lose through 

 its neglect of forestry in the past; and, of course, the longer 

 Australia delays putting its forests in order the greater will be 

 the inevitable loss before it can get square with its forestry. 

 One must remember that forestry in Australia is not merely 

 a question of growing its own timber or buying it from a 

 neighbour. There is no neighbour. The great waste of waters 

 in the Southern Hemisphere affords no escape from the con- 



