CHAPTER X 

 CONCLUSION 



IN the course of this study certain factors, which are 

 bound to have a profound influence upon the future course 

 of governmental policy regarding wild life, have become 

 evident. It is perhaps well to summarize these factors 

 briefly, and to attempt to forecast their possible effect upon 

 future policies. 



Nation Committed to Conservation: In the first place it 

 is fairly obvious that in so far as future public policy is 

 concerned, we as a nation are definitely committed to the 

 principle of conservation of natural resources. Conserva- 

 tion has sometimes meant merely the negative policy of 

 preventing uneconomic use, but in our present state of de- 

 velopment at least it means replacement as well as preven- 

 tion. Certainly conservation of wild life in America today 

 involves largely the problem of replenishing what has been 

 destroyed. 



In the past we have operated upon laissez-faire principles 

 of economics, maintaining that if each person did what is 

 best for his own interests, he did what is best for the in- 

 terests of all. Today this theory has been pretty well 

 exploded and we have come to realize that the interests of 

 the individual may run directly counter to those of society 

 at large. 



One might well query, who benefited in the past by the 



ruthless cutting of timber, destruction of the soil, and 



killing of game? A few individual lumbermen became 



wealthy; a few tobacco planters made great fortunes and a 



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