PUBLIC APATHY 3 



that the arboricultural societies of the country have 

 done what they could ; but their exhortations were 

 chiefly confined to, or mainly reached those more or 

 less connected with forestry matters in this country, 

 proprietors of woods, their employees, agents, 

 factors and foresters, and timber merchants, the 

 latter 's chief interest lying in purchasing and felling 

 the woods. The mass of the people could, in the 

 ordinary nature of things, never have heard of these 

 exhortations and remain unaffected thereby. And 

 let it be said at once that those who preached had 

 not, could not have had, an inkling of how vital and 

 serious this problem was to become. As will be 

 shown, the governments who have held office during 

 the past quarter of a century dallied with the ques- 

 tion, but they, no more than the public or it would 

 perhaps be more correct to say, because of the 

 apathy of the public were without faith in the 

 importance of the forestry problem, and even ques- 

 tioned the necessity of the existence of such a 

 problem as an economic factor in the national 

 interests. 



There was a slow commencement of a revival of 

 the question just previous to the outbreak of the war, 

 but it is an open secret that the Government- were 

 still far from thoroughly convinced of the urgency 

 of the afforestation question. And at that date 

 but an infinitesimal fraction of the public had ever 

 heard of it ; and the ideas amongst this fraction as 

 to the manner in which the problem should be 

 tackled could not by the strongest effort of imagina- 

 tion be described as clear cut or unanimous. 



