388 



NATURE 



[July i8, 191 8 



wood pulp. This question may be expected to 

 crop up again. America must in the future be a 

 very large importer of Canadian timber ; and 

 although we may hope to obtain a certain pro- 

 portion of our requirements from Canada during 

 the next forty years, it would not be a good 

 policy, or even economically sound if another way 

 out can be found, to stand in Canada's way by 

 asking her to forgo a certain part of a large 

 and profitable market at her door in order to 

 bolster up a more distant one at a financial loss 

 to herself. On the other hand, our timber indus- 

 tries could not afford to pay the same price as 

 American ones plus the additional transit charges 

 to this country. The question of tonnage does not 

 affect the matter save in so far as the shorter the 

 distance the material has to be carried, the 

 simpler the tonnage arrangements. 



Russia.— \ have given some study to the 

 Russian forests for the past decade and more, and 

 had an opportunity last year of discussing the 

 problem of their exploitation with several members 

 of the Russian Provisional Government and assist- 

 ant Ministers. Russia has an enormous area of 

 undeveloped forests. Those of interest to us are 

 situated in the Archangel, Vologda, and Olenets 

 Governments, Archangel and Alexandrovsk being 

 the ports of shipment, the chief species being pine, 

 spruce, and larch. Before the war our chief im- 

 ports from Russia came from the Baltic ports. I 

 have already given the reasons for regarding the 

 revival of these imports after the war as improb- 

 able. What remains of those forests, I was 

 credibly informed, Russia will require to keep for 

 herself. I have long held the opinion that, with 

 the inevitable decrease of the exports from some 

 of the countries supplying Great Britain, which 

 were all felling primeval forest, we should have 

 to go to Russia for an increasing amount of our 

 requirements. The war has brought about this 

 condition and rendered our position more diffi- 

 cult owing to the fact that we shall now have to 

 face competition to a degree previously non- 

 existent. It has become an economic necessity 

 for us to obtain a proportion, the larger propor- 

 tion, of our requirements in soft woods from the 

 Russian forests during the next forty to fifty 

 years. The only point for consideration is, Are 

 we going to make arrangements to obtain them 

 direct, or are we going to obtain them from 

 middlemen and pay the middlemen's profits? 



In March, 1916, I put forward the sugges- 

 tion that we should come to an arrangement with 

 the Russian Government whereby areas of a suffi- 

 cient size to furnish us with a definite proportion of 

 our requirements should be leased to us. With 

 this end in view I went to Russia last year. 

 I visited portions of the forests in the Archangel 

 and Vologda Governments, and discussed the 

 matter thoroughly with members of the Govern- 

 ment. This Government had decided upon an 

 arrangement under which it was prepared to 

 favour the Allies as against the Central Powers 

 with reference to granting facilities to capital 

 for the development of the valuable unexploited 

 NO. 2542, VOL. lOl] 



resources of Russia, of which her forests will prove 

 the easiest to commence with. The Government 

 was proposing to grant concessions in the big" 

 forests of the north-east in blocks of 500,000 acres, 

 each concession to be for a period of thirty to 

 thirty-five years. The working of these blocks 1 

 would be granted to foreigners who were prepared ^i^ 

 to provide the necessary capital and would under- -^ 

 take to fashion the material in Russia before ex- j 

 port — i.e. convert it into sawn material, wood \ 

 pulp, etc. I was informed that the Provisional 

 Government was prepared to come to an agree- 

 ment with the British Government on these lines, \ 

 that, in fact, we could acquire an area or areas ,? 

 of Russian forest which would enable us to assure 

 a proportion of our future requirements, our neces- 

 sities, in the soft woods which are of such great 

 importance to our industries. 



This was the position when the Provisional 

 Government was swept away and the Bolsheviks 

 came into power. The present phase in Russian 

 politics may be regarded as a transition stage. 

 When a stable Government supervenes we should 

 be ready to take advantage of this opportunity to 

 remove all anxiety on the score of the future 

 timber supplies of this country. If we do not 

 seize the opportunity we may be certain that 

 others will do so, in which case, since the 

 material is essential to our wood-using industries, 

 and, therefore, must be obtained, we shall have 

 to pay middlemen's profits to the foreigner, the 

 Swede, Norwegian, and so forth, who, having ex- 

 ploited their own forests, would wish to maintain 

 their exports to Great Britain h\' felling in the 

 Russian forests. E. P. Stebbing. 



INDIGO IN BIHAR. 



THE present position and future prospects of 

 the natural indigo industry in India have of 

 late been the subject of renewed and intensive 

 study. Two interesting articles, in which the 

 actual situation is partly summarised, have re- 

 cently appeared.^ These papers supply a concise 

 r.eview of the growth of the synthetic indigo in- 

 dustry and of the displacement since 1897- of 

 natural indigo by the synthetic product. By 1910 

 the cultivation of indigo in Java had almost be- 

 come extinct, the crop there being largely replaced 

 by sugar. By 1914 the manufacture of indigo had 

 practically ceased in all the provinces of India 

 except Bihar, where alone the industry was in 

 European hands and was conducted in well- 

 equipped establishments. The area under indigo, 

 which in 1895 was nearly 1,700,000 acres, had 

 shrunk to less than 150,000 acres. The price per lb., 

 which in 1897 w\is still from 75. to 8s., had 

 fallen, in the early part of 1914, to 35. 



With the cessation of the supplies of German 

 synthetic indigo which accompanied the outbreak 

 of hostilities, the prices of Indian indigo were 

 nearly quadrupled, and this high figure was main- 



1 "The Present Position and Future Prospects of the Natural Indigo 

 Industry." By W. A. Davis, Indigo Research Chemist to the Government' 

 of India. Agricnltural Join nal of India, vol. xiii., parts i. (January) and 

 ii. (April), 1918. 



