Canadian Forestry Journal, January, 1919 



BUILDING UP NEW TRADE MEANS BUILDING 

 UP NEW FORESTS! 



By Rl. Hon. Sir George E. Foster, K.C.M.C., 

 Minister of Trade and Commerce. 



A Call to National Action in the Interests of 

 Canada's Future Population. 



Editor, "Canadian Forestry JournaL" 



My deep interest in the subject prompts me 

 to send you this brief reply to your two 

 questions: 



1 . What in my view is the position assured 

 to Canadian forest products in future export 

 markets? 



In respect to this the situation is obvoius. 

 For nearly four years and a half the most 

 destructive war of the ages has raged over a 

 great part of the world on land, on sea and 

 in the air. It has been a war of tremendous 

 equipments and of most destructive appli- 

 ances in offence and defence. For this equip- 

 ment in ships, airplanes, bridges, trench 

 housing and packing construction, the call 

 upon forest resources has been almost in- 

 calculable. This call has not been satisfied 

 from the usual timber resources, but has been 

 made with peculiar insistence upon private 

 and public timber areas hitherto Httle cut, 

 which constituted as it were, great growing 

 reserves for future use. In this way the 

 standing and preserved areas in Great Britain, 

 France, Belgium and Central Europe have 

 been sadly depleted. This, however, is only 

 one side of the picture. 



A World of Bare Shelves. 



Whilst this severe and pitiless requisition 

 on standing timber was benig made, forces of 

 destruction by virtue of and armed by this 

 very supply were incessantly at work sinking, 

 burning, and br.ttering to atoms structures of 

 all conceivable kinds in which wood formed 

 the material in whole or in part. So that 

 here we have had the merry race of devasta- 

 tion feverishly employing the living material 

 in order through its destruction to destroy the 

 vast accumulation of dead and built in ma- 

 terial. It needs but a moment's thought to 

 conceive the effect of this double orgy of 

 destruction upon the world's forest resources. 

 But it will tatx the capacity of the best 

 statisticians to display the incalculable loss. 



Now when peace comes, the world's shelves 

 are bare, the world's resources are diminished 

 and the world's needs are greater than ever. 

 The deduction is plain. 



Canada which possesses large forest re- 

 sources will be imperatively called upon to 

 contribute to the reconstruction necessities of 

 the devastated portions of Europe. 



Organisation, intelligent and economic 

 methods of production and financial credits 

 wlil do the rest. Are our Captains of Lumber 

 ready? If not, it is time they were "up and 

 doing." 



