DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS FOR 1933 15 



COMMUNICATIONS 



Some 56,885 communications were received and handled by the various 

 branches, excluding those directly pertaining to the Minister's office, Land 

 Tax Branch, Relief Land Settlement and the Forestry Branch, which was 

 over 4,000 beyond the previous year. 



Outgoing communications exceeded those of the year 1932 by nearly 

 7,000. 



During a troublous period such as the world has experienced the last few 

 years those who have business with the Crown in the natural resources find 

 it increasingly difficult to meet obligations and naturally seek extensions 

 of time, resulting in a spread of actions rather than in a single one such as 

 obtains in normal times. Others, anxious to improve their lot, survey the field 

 of possibilities and approach the Department with all forms of propositions 

 to assuage their own troubles and bring about an assured millenium. 



The correspondence handled, and the memoranda and various documents 

 resulting therefrom, are a reflection of the detailed work involved in handling 

 land and timber matters with their co-related interests and rather than showing 

 a diminution are evidencing an increase without, unfortunately, any corres- 

 ponding increase in the aggregate revenue. 



TIMBER ADMINISTRATION 



To properly reflect the relative positions of the Department and the 

 Bush Operators or Licensees would normally involve reciting extensive facts 

 and figures as to the varying influences affecting the situation to-day. A 

 reference to some of these, however, will indicate something of the difficulties 

 of the Operator and the more or less alarming reduction in Departmental 

 revenue from forest resources. 



The general decline in building trades, the tightening up of the money 

 markets, the American tariff on finished lumber, are important factors in 

 the distressing conditions of the lumber industry. The uncertainty of the 

 last few years prompted most of the large Operators and many of the smaller 

 ones to discontinue, in whole or in part, their bush operations and to rely 

 upon their yard entries for future calls. The Retailers in turn, disturbed by 

 the indifferent markets and doubtful fluctuations, hesitated to rehabilitate 

 their stocks, placing upon the wholesaler or original producer the responsi- 

 bility of filling small sized and detailed graded orders. In most cases the 

 annual overhead charges covering Insurance, interest calls and other neces- 

 sary demands, have inevitably been assumed by the Operator, which in normal 

 times would be covered by a spread amongst dealers and tradesmen in lumber 

 products. 



Where Companies of long and well established connections have been 

 compelled, only after determined efforts, to close their concerns, they are 

 faced with a serious double handicap of disintegrating their skeleton working 

 organization or their permanent nuclei developed and brought up to a state 

 of efficiency during a long course of operations and also of losing their business 



