270 



Canadian Forestry Journal, June, 1919 



CANADA'S FORESTS AS AN IMPERIAL ASSET 



By Rohson BlacJf, Secretary, the Canadian Forestry Association. 

 (From the University Magazine.) 



In the light of war experience, one is not 

 called upon to argue the value of forest supplies 

 to a belligerent nation. The grave predica- 

 ment in which the Allied armies on the western 

 front would have been placed had Britain's 

 home timber supplies been their sole reliance is 

 not to be contemplated with comfort. Had 

 France been unable to thrust into modern war- 

 fare at a day's notice the powerful, perfectly 

 organized weapon of great national forests, no 

 display of generalship or human fortitude would 

 have availed against the German onrush. It is 

 not surprising, therefore, to find not only in the 

 British Isles, but in the overseas dominions a 

 remarkable quickening of public interest in for- 

 estry policies, and new determinations that, de- 

 spite the lethargy of the past, the notorious 

 shortcomings common to the whole Empire shall 

 not be imposed upon the future. 



It may be that where the plodding foresight 

 of the French and German sylviculturist for a 

 century past missed the Anglo-Saxon completely, 

 the picturesque mass-play of forestry battalions 

 in days of war will be the means of forcing 

 the importance of national forest management 

 upon his peace time policies. 



Of a certainty, the citizen who persists through 

 these grilling years in his traditional contempt 

 for national supervision of timber production 

 invites catastrophe upon his country even if 

 nothing worse than a trade Armageddon lie be- 

 fore us. But there are bound to be considera- 

 tions of physical safety taking priority to trade. 

 In any- future war, the conduct of military move- 

 ments will depend probably, even more than in 

 1918, upon an unfailing supply of timber ma- 

 terials, which in turn must be anticipated far 

 in advance by national forestry organization, 

 with public sentiment and public resources pat- 

 iently upholding its programme. We have lived 

 through the unprecedented sepectacle of nations 

 mobilizing not only fighting men but women and 

 boys, factories, mines, railroads, forests, and 

 farms. Where shall one discover another such 

 unprophesied enterprise as the transfer of 

 1 0,000 woodsmen from Ontario and Quebec and 

 British Columbia to the forests of the United 

 Kingdom and France? Or could one parallel in 

 military history the hewing down of 30,000 



French trees every day, and the transfer to the 

 fighting front of 200 million board feet of tim- 

 ber a month? 



To the British observer it may appear at first 

 sight that the forests of Canada are but dis- 

 tantly related to the timber supply problem of 

 the United Kingdom. In all treatments of this 

 subject which the present writer has read, the 

 probability of Canada engaging more extens- 

 ively in the British timber trade is subordinated 

 to other schemes having Russia, Sweden and 

 Norway as their forefront and reliance. Admit- 

 tedly these countries have in their favor a very 

 much lower freight charge, and none will dis- 

 pute that Russia, in particular, with 1 ,200,000 

 square miles of timber lands, is competent to 

 stand the strain of any conceivable demand. 



The British Viewpoint. 



The Forestry Sub-committee of the British 

 Reconstruction Committee has, however, struck 

 a new note in its recent report. It has ven- 

 turned to consider the possibilities of a larger 

 trade in timber with Canada, and goes far in 

 suggesting prectical steps toward that goal. The 

 effect of the report in Canada almost certainly 

 will be to demonstrate to the Dominion and 

 Provincial forest administrations that timber 

 conservation has suddenly taken on a serious 

 imperial aspect, demanding an immediate ap- 

 plication of scientific guidance and statesman- 

 ship such as would redeem some of our overseas 

 forest policies from their present low estate. 



The main object of the Forestry Sub-Com- 

 mittee, naturally, is the planting up of suitable 

 areas in the United Kingdom so as to overtake 

 in time the great discrepancy between conifer- 

 ous timber consumption and home production. 

 But the best-favored planting scheme demands 

 patient waiting and heavy investments from the 

 public treasury, either through direct payment 

 for planting operations or by readjustment of 

 taxation methods. Meanwhile timber must be 

 had in undiminished quantities, and that means 

 import ation from mature forests beyond the 

 British Isles. 



It is one of the odd developments of the war 

 that the forests of Canada were outlawed for 

 military requirements by the need of eliminating 

 timber cargoes from the shipping lists. For the 



