DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS FOR 1934 15 



its account maintaining that the Act never contemplated making the com- 

 pany subject to the Act and for various reasons asserts that the company 

 should not be held assessible. 



The Act makes provision for a declaration of forfeiture after the taxes 

 are in arrears for a period of at least two years. Up to the present time, how- 

 ever, no land has been forfeited under this Act although steps will now be taken, 

 where collections fail after every reasonable effort has been made, to provide 

 for forfeiture. 



At least 50% of the taxpayers are non-residents of the Province of Ontario. 

 Of the revenue, 65% is derived from companies and individuals owning large 

 tracts of timber land such as Railway Land Grants, Veteran Grants and land 

 acquired from the Department of Indian Affairs at Ottawa; 23% is derived 

 from the owners of summer resorts, 10% from individuals owning land such 

 as Veteran Grants and Indian Lands lying idle and possibly held for specula- 

 tion. The remaining revenue representing 2% is derived from miscellaneous 

 sources. 



TIMBER OPERATIONS 



The bush operations conducted throughout the Fall of 1933 and the 

 Winter of 1934, which were extended into the Summer in respect of peeled 

 pulpwood, accounted for a cut in log timber of more than two and a half times 

 that of the preceding year, the total cut being 92,303,273 feet B. M., of which 

 41% consisted of Red and White Pine, 23% of Jackpine and 26% of other 

 species such as Birch, Maple, Hemlock, etc. Axe-ties were cut to the extent 

 of 436,470, or 10,975 more than last year, but only about 40% of those cut 

 in 1933. 



Although the board measure output was so much in excess of the previous 

 year the fact is that it is only about one-quarter of the quantity logged in 

 the year ending October 31st, 1929, when approximately 357,000,000 feet 

 were cut, this figure, however, rapidly diminishing each season until an excep- 

 tionally low figure was reached in 1933 when but 35,000,000 feet fell to the 

 woodman's axe. 



These figures in themselves very clearly reflect the diminished markets 

 resulting from the economic upheaval occurring the latter part of 1929 and 

 finding its peak throughout the following years. 



Operators who had the courage to continue in producing material with 

 an uncertain market did so mainly to maintain intact their essential skeleton 

 working organization, the disintegration of which would seriously handicap 

 them should a sudden reversal of business demand a renewal of activities on 

 a normal scale. They were also urged by the hope that the building trades, 

 which had suffered such an unfortunate decline, would take on an improve- 

 ment under an expected encouragement from a Federal governmental and 

 local municipal building programme to clean up slums and rehabilitate worn- 

 out structures. 



The export dealers, to whom the American markets for their product 

 have been practically shut out since 1932, when the excise duty of $3.00 a 

 M feet B.M. with the tariff of SI. 00 a M feet B.M. made international trans- 

 actions in lumber in effect prohibitive, while proceeding cautiously against the 



