34 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



In the selection of your forest lands you are liable to make 'the same mistakes, 

 and on a larger scale, besides provoking, from the first, the opposition of those inter- 

 ested in the development of the particular section. 



In the -Cascades and other mountains of course the difficulty is less, and the 

 chance of success greater, but in your province or in Ontario the case is anything but 

 simple. On the same forty-acre lot you may find the best of muck soil and the poorest 

 of snnd, and in thousands of square miles of land you have good and poor farm land 

 on the same section of land. Your agent will say : ' It is non-agricultural land ; ' but 

 the settler says: 'But I know better, and I am willing to risk my reputation, my 

 money and my time on making a good farm home.' Who will decide? We in the 

 states have had experience in this direction both as to farm and mineral lands, and 

 our successes have been few, our errors many. 



You will probably find ways of solving this problem better than by simple selec- 

 tion. Certain areas might be set aside temporarily until more need for the lands can 

 be shown; you may require payment for the timber; you may defer settlement until 

 the timber has been cut over, and in various ways do away with the arbitrary feature 

 of the simple and costly selection. 



Both in this matter of land selection and in the dealing with people living in 

 your reserves a little tact and goodwill is sure to accomplish a good deal. Show those 

 people that their rights are respected, their interests guarded, and at tine same time 

 let them understand that the law is supreme, and must be obeyed. 



JUDGE WEIR. Mr. Chairman, will you pardon me if I refer to just one statement 

 that has been made this morning. 



Allusion has been made to the magistrates, and to the somewhat curious fact 

 that, notwithstanding statutes fixing the minimum fine and the maximum fine, cer- 

 tain magistrates in British Columbia and in the state of North Carolina have disre- 

 garded these provisions of the law, delinquents being frequently discharged, or fined 

 less than the minimum that is fixed by the statute. 



I should like to say that I do not think there^is the slightest doubt that where the 

 law imposes a minimum fine the magistrate has no right whatever to condemn the 

 accused to a fine less than such minimum, and further, I should be greatly surprised 

 if the laws of every state and province do not as in Quebec provide a certain means 

 of compelling magistrates to impose the penalty which the law requires by way of 

 certiorari, for instance. 



If that fact were known, it would, I think, lend strong aid in such cases as Mr. 

 Leamy and Dr. Schenck have referred to, by compelling the magistrate to pronounce 

 a sentence in accordance with the law. 



As one gentleman has referred to the pressure that is sometimes brought to bear 

 on members to reverse Orders in Council, perhaps these magistrates are sometimes 

 under similar pressure. But if they were made aware of the fact that the law imposes 

 a minimum and a maximum fine, within which limits only their discretion may move, 

 and outside of which it has no right whatever to go, they could effectively answer re- 

 quests for leniency by saying, ' Well, the law is so and so, and I have no discretion 





