26 FOREST PLANTING. 



continue the enterprise, unless prompted by the charita- 

 ble desire to give some men employment. From a quifco 

 different standpoint would in this case the question of 

 the profitableness be considered, should the government 

 take this work in hand. The $100,000 paid for labor, 

 machinery, etc., would then be looked upon as benefiting 

 the people, and the nation would have by the continued 

 exploitation of the mine a profit of $100,000 every year, 

 that being the sum which had been distributed for labor, 

 etc. The same principles govern the profitableness of State 

 forests, unless a State is forced or willing to use them a? 

 a source of revenue. If after all expenditures and re- 

 ceipts there be a surplus, all the better. But even if, 

 after paying the salaries of the officers, the wages of the 

 laborers, the cost for cultivating, planting, etc., nothing 

 of the receipts be left, those items would not be regarded 

 as expenses in the same sense as a business man would 

 view them, but would represent a real gain for the com- 

 monwealth. In other words : owners of private forests 

 endeavor to obtain from their property the largest possi- 

 ble income ; whereas the managers of State forests should 

 aim at the highest possible gross amount of revenue from 

 the wooded public domain. 



The advocates of state socialism use this maxim for 

 justifying their theorem that every business which is car- 

 ried on with the intention of accumulating wealth, should 

 be conducted by the government or public authorities, 

 and all net proceeds should be distributed among the 

 employees. But in the public economy the natural prin- 

 ciples are only effective and applicable as far as they are 

 not modified by such laws as are acting alongside with 

 them, or which are even opposed to them. In our 

 democratic republic the doctrine that the State must 

 only interfere "to protect freedom of labor," is in regard 

 to the social question considered a corner-stone of our 

 government, and therefore we do not allow the public 



