53 < \\MH.\\ i-i;i-:sTKY iSSOOIATlOS 



that is the question of settlement. All lumbermen to-day hold limits well within the 

 borders of civilization. Some lumbermen have been very careful in preserving the 

 limits that are closed, great care being taken and much money expended in keeping 

 fire out and skill exercised in the cutting. Now, when timber of all kinds is increasing 

 in value, a so-called settler goes through the limits and he finds a particularly choice 

 lot. He promptly makes application to the Department. Reports are called for. In 

 scene cases the lot is not settled ; in many cases it is settled. In a great percentage 

 of the cases where it is settled, that lot has been taken, not for the purposes of absolute 

 location, but for the purpose of stealing the timber. My own company buys back each 

 year many thousands of dollars worth of timber which are absolutely cut out of our 

 own licensed lands, which have been taken from us on the plea of settlement. And 

 the so-called settler cuts the timber, sells it to us, packs up his turkey and moves over 

 into the next concession and ^repeats the operation. From the lumberman's point of 

 view that is serious. I recognize, as I said before, the difficulties of the Government 

 in dealing with that question. We want people in the country and it is their bounden- 

 duty to encourage settlement to the fullest extent, but I think there should be some 

 continuity of interest between the Forestry Association, the Government, and the 

 lumbermen on this very point. I do not thiik any lumberman in the country will 

 stand in the light of bona fide settlement, but every lumberman is certainly opposed 

 to timber stealing, such as we are now suffering from. I am not making these remarks 

 from a critical spirit, but it is a matter of importance, and I think of sufficient import- 

 ance for the Forestry Association to consider, and see if there are any suggestions 

 which can be made to the Department which will aid in dealing with a very delicate 

 matter. 



Mr. WHITE. Mr. Chairman, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the 

 remarks which have fallen from Mr. Rathbun in connection with the interests of 

 settlement and the interests of the lumbermen. I need scarcely say to you, sir, that 

 the Department of Crown Lands is continually in hot water and more or less a subject 

 of criticism for the manner in which it tries to discharge its duty to both these interests. 

 On the one side we are attacked by the lumbermen because we do not keep out the 

 settlers. Upon the other side we are attacked by the settlers and by their friends in 

 Parliament because we do not let them go in as freely as they think they ought to be 

 allowed to go in. Now, it is a most difficult thing, where the two interests are so 

 intimately woven, that you cannot touch one without touching the other, to know just 

 what is the proper course to pursue. Of late years we have, endeavoured to pursue 

 what wo have believed to be, at any rate, an intelligent course, and have endeavoured 

 to work out to the best of our ability what is in the interests of the province as a 

 whole. In the old days when timber limits were sold all the timber went with the sale, 

 and large tracts of territory have been under license for years, in townships which 

 have been opened for settlement, and into which the settlers had a perfect right to go. 

 It is true that in some cases, perhaps in a good many cases, lands are taken up that 

 ought not to be taken up for settlement ; where the settlers would have been better 

 off, from an agricultural point of view at any rate, if they had not selected these lands. 

 Now, of late years we have pursued this course. When an application is made for a 

 location we refer the application to the lumberman in order to know if he has any 

 objection, and if so what his objections are. We usually find that the statements of 



