1156 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMEEICAN FOKESTBY 



these courses could be followed without substantial outlays of public 

 funds or losses of public revenues. 



The public also could increase the financial returns to the private 

 owner of timberland. It could, for example, pay a bonus on lands 

 managed in conformity with prescribed standards or principles. It 

 could rebate taxes previously paid on such lands. Most practical of 

 all, it could pay higher unit prices for the lumber and other timber 

 products which it consumes and thus make it possible for the pro- 

 ducers thereof more effectively to meet the true requirements of 

 forest conservation. 



The first question presented by this latter proposal is that of ways 

 and means. So long as the products of the forest are subject to the 

 free play of the laws of supply and demand, and so long as a surplus 

 of forest products is competing for a limited market, and so long as 

 the timberland owners believe themselves to be driven by financial 

 necessity to liquidate regardless of the ultimate effect upon their 

 forest properties or financial status, no way exists through which the 

 public can be compelled to pay a greater share of the costs of ade- 

 quate forest management, except by a modification of existing laws 

 through which production could be controlled and correlated with 

 demand, and the depressing effect of unrestrained competition upon 

 unit prices could be averted. 



Otherwise the better the market, the more existing mills are 

 brought into maximum production, the more new mills are pro- 

 moted. In such circumstances higher unit prices for timber com- 

 modities would not necessarily mean better forest management. 

 Some definite and guaranteed correlation between production and 

 consumption, stabilizing, and safeguarding the permanency and 

 security of conservative forest management, would be an unavoidable 

 essential. 



Under American concepts of government and private enterprise it 

 is quite natural to propose that the desired objective be attained by 

 a compact or series of compacts between the timberland owners of 

 the Nation, supported by State or possibly Federal regulatory pow- 

 ers and by State and Federal policies of public forest-land manage- 

 ment and utilization. This would require drastic modification of 

 existing public policies relating to combinations of industry or capital. 

 Unless the compacts encompassed all large timber holdings, both 

 operative and inoperative, each price advance would be merely an 

 incentive to the installation of additional mill capacity and the 

 operation of additional blocks of timber. No compact among 

 timberland owners could be successfully maintained unless it em- 

 braced all actual and potential owners of such lands, and was sus- 

 ceptible of effective enforcement by legal processes. It would 

 require new machinery for supervision and control. To be effective 

 it would mean large increases in the costs of the lumber and other 

 timber products consumed by the American people. 



As an alternative^ the adjustment of the present chaotic condi- 

 tion of the lumber industry by a program of controlled production 

 leading to the establishment of higher prices per unit of timber 

 product, thus endowing timberland owners with greater financial 

 power to properly manage and utilize their properties, consideration 

 properly may be given to the question of whether public acquisition 

 of certain forest areas may not be the most equitable method by which 



