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views that are of value is a different matter, but I think there is 

 little doubt that the subject in which we are all interested does 

 afford an opportunity for the profitable utilisation of the services 

 of those brave men for whom nothing that we can do can be 

 anything like equal to the occasion. Many of them, of course, 

 as we know, have gone from occupations of this sort, and in 

 coming back to the planting and tending of trees they will be 

 returning to familiar and congenial work. I should hope that 

 we should also be able to attract others who have not been so 

 fortunately situated with regard to country work, and those 

 whose lot has been thrown in industrial centres might find in the 

 country an opportunity of utilising their labour. I see that you 

 are still dissatisfied with what the authorities are doing for you. 

 I read, too, a note of regret, 1 think, into the resolution, a note 

 of lack of contentment with the progress that has been made. 

 I do not know whether I also detected a note of envy in the 

 idea that other countries have gone any further than Scotland 

 has. I think Mr Annand, in his letter, seemed to indicate that 

 more had been done south of the Border than north of it, but 

 perhaps some of us who know southern conditions better would 

 hardly be prepared to say that any more progress has been 

 made as regards the development of afforestation even there. 

 In any case, there is no doubt that Scotland is pre-eminently 

 the country where national afforestation ought to catch on, and 

 it is clearly the country of all others where conditions of success 

 are most manifestly present. We have had a Government 

 Committee sitting in England which is charged with finding 

 areas. I have an idea that you have had such a task imposed 

 upon you in the past. It is one thing, however, for a Govern- 

 ment Department to say 'Go and find'; it is another thing for 

 the Government Department, when you have reported, to accept 

 your recommendation. We are in the condition in the south at 

 present, so far as I understand the situation, of searching for 

 areas, but I am bound to say that my experience of the past 

 does not make me very sanguine of great results emerging from 

 this search. Whether the conditions after this terrible cataclysm 

 is past will be good for afforestation or not, is very difficult to 

 say. On the face of it, one would, of course, expect that the 

 country would put its house in order, and develop to the utmost 

 of its natural and national opportunities ; but with much more 

 money at its disposal the same claims have been urged in the 



