98 TIMBER REQUIREMENTS 



which chiefly concern Great Britain. In these the 

 great North Eastern forests of Russia are bound to 

 play a leading part during the next forty to fifty 

 years. Archangel and the New Murman ice-free 

 port, with, in all probability, others further east, will 

 be the chief exporting centres. Riga and other 

 Baltic ports are unlikely to show in the future 

 anything like the amount of their timber exports 

 of the past. For one thing, some 16,000,000 acres 

 of forest have been destroyed on the Eastern front 

 in the fighting zones in the basin ol the Western 

 Dvina, Lower and Northern Dnyepr, and in Lithu- 

 ania, and the opinion was strongly held in Russia 

 in 1917 that the Russians would keep the timber 

 remaining in this part of the country for their own 

 reconstruction work and refuse to allow its export 

 in any quantity. The zone of the main timber 

 exports from North Russia has then shifted to the 

 White Sea and Arctic Ocean, and a portion at least, 

 probably the larger portion, of our timber imports 

 must, I believe, come from here. 



After a close study of this problem I again visited 

 Russia in 1917, went up to Archangel, and from 

 there visited some of the forest areas on the Upper 

 Northern Dvina and Vitchegda. The forests of pine 

 and spruce in these regions are enormous in extent 

 and very fine. All that -is required is capital to 

 open them out. We can either go and get the 

 material ourselves ; or we can remain dependent 

 on the foreign capitalist (not the Russian, for he 

 has no capital) and pay him the middleman's 

 charges and profits. 



