324 



Canadian Forestry Journal, July, 1919 



WESTERN CANADA ! — THIS IS YOUR BUSINESS 



If Your Timber Resources Are Valued as Public Essentials, an 

 Immediate Change in Dommion Methods is Due You. 



Through the Canadian Forestry Journal, 

 which regularly enlists the interest of more than 

 two thousand public men in the three prairie 

 provinces, and by various other channels, the 

 long overdue change in public management of 

 the choicest timber areas in the Middle West 

 has been developed to such a point where post- 

 ponement of the obvious remedy cannot prevail 

 much longer. 



By permission of the Parliamentary Com- 

 mittee on reorganization of the Civil Service, 

 the Canadian Forestry Association will present 

 a statement of its case at the Fall session of 

 Parliament. It is noteworthy that the points 

 contained m the Association's memorandum 

 have never been discounted nor even seriously 

 disputed from official or unofficial sources. 

 Excerpts from the memorandum are as follows: 



"The proposal we wish to bring before your 

 committee m this mstance is that the timber 

 cutting operations on the licensed timber berths, 

 which comprise the finest timber lands of the 

 prairie provinces and the railway belt of British 

 Columbia, should be brought into line with 

 almost universal modern practice and placed 

 henceforth under direction of the Dominion For- 

 estry Branch. The latter represents the Domin- 

 ion Government's forest conservation enterprise 

 but at the present time has no actual authority 

 over the really valuable timber of the Canadian 

 West. Our reasons for this are of a specific 

 and substantial nature. The public interest in 

 maintaining a permanent timber supply tran- 

 scends the interests of any commercial operator 

 and IS supposed to represent the motive of all 

 Government administrators. The public inter- 

 est requires that forest lands of no agricultural 

 value shall be utilized for immediate require- 

 ments but with full provision for the mainten- 

 ance of the capital values represented in matur- 

 ing timber. In other words, the forest is to be 

 regarded as a reproductive crop rather than a 

 non-reproductive mine. This is the guiding star 

 of all efficient European Governments and of 

 the Government of the United States on the 

 national forest domain. 



What of the Future? 



We are convinced that at the present time, the 

 timber stock on Dominion lands, administered 



by the Timber and Grazing Branch, is in a 

 state of progressive depletion and that pro- 

 vision for future timber growth receives little, if 

 any, consideration. While it is true a diameter 

 limit is theoretically imposed upon all operators, 

 this measure, even if enforced, is not in itself 

 adequate to bring on a new forest. Each set of 

 conditions within a forest area requires distinct 

 forestry treatment, if conservation is to be more 

 than a hollow term, and forestry is the business 

 of technically trained foresters. 



Get the Money — Lose the Forest. 



We submit further that the present primary 

 concern of the Timber and Grazing Branch is 

 the collection of revenue, not the management 

 of the country's timber supply on a basis of per- 

 manent production. For the latter respons- 

 ibility, which takes precedence to the gathering 

 of immediate revenues, the Timber and Grazing 

 Branch has no administrative provision. It does 

 not employ any forester, nor is there any means 

 by which the staff of technical foresters of the 

 Dominion Forestry Branch are given control of 

 the work for which they are especially trained, 

 and upon which they are already engaged as to 

 lands in the Dominion forest reserves a.jide from 

 the licenced timber berths. 



The Example of Others. 



The Dominion Forestry Branch was instituted 

 as a conservation body to administer the tim.ber 

 resources of the West, not as a selling bureau, 

 but to protect from fire and to build up the 

 Western forests in the immediate and future in- 

 terests of the Western people. Yet, the Dom- 

 inion Forestry Branch and its constructive 

 operations are restricted mostly to the poorest 

 timber areas, while the main timber resources 

 of the prairie provinces are thrown open to 

 practically unrestricted exploitation. 



The Provinces of British Columbia, Quebec 

 and New Brunswick have taken action similar 

 to that advocated for Dominion lands. In those 

 provinces, the local forestry organization com- 

 pletely controls the administration of cutting on 

 all Crown timber lands, whether licensed or 

 unlicensed. 



Undisputed Facts. 



The Canadian Forestry Association has made 

 these representations to your committee from a 



