NATURE 



441 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 1919. 



THE FORESTRY BILL. 

 Al rE referred last week to the Forestry Bill, 

 * * which has passed its third reading in the 

 House of Lords and is now before the House of 

 Commons. The Bill is a Government measure 

 and is largely based upon the Report of the 

 Forestry Sub-Committee appointed by the late 

 Minister of Reconstruction. It creates a Forestry 

 Authority consisting of five Commissioners, three 

 of whom are to be paid, "charged with the 

 general duty of promoting the interests of 

 forestry, the development of afforestation, and 

 the production and supply of timber in the 

 United Kingdom." The Commissioners will 

 have powers to expend 3,500,000?. during the 

 next ten years in afforestation. This sum of 

 money is to be at their absolute disposal, and 

 will be subject to no control by Parliament or 

 by any Minister responsible to Parliament. The 

 powers conferred are thus very wide. The Com- 

 missioners may acquire land, compulsorily if 

 necessary, and may plant trees themselves, or 

 aid, by loan or grant, owners of land to plant. 

 They may establish and carry on woodland indus- 

 tries. Education in forestry is to be promoted 

 by the establishment of schools and by aid to 

 existing institutions where forestry is taught. 

 The Commissioners may also make inquiries and 

 undertake experiments and research. 



It will be obvious from this synopsis that the 

 Commissioners will have the charge of a great 

 national undertaking, which, if it were a business 

 proposition, would need to provide evidence that 

 the men who are to be entrusted with the work 

 possess the qualifications necessary to give con- 

 fidence in their successful accomplishment of it. 

 In other words, if the Bill represented a company 

 prospectus involving the control and expenditure 

 of three and a half million pounds, little of this 

 amount would be subscribed in the absence of 

 any assurance as to the satisfactory constitution 

 of the directorate. This, however, is exactly 

 what the Bill neglects to supply. There is nothing 

 to ensure that any of the Commissioners — paid 

 or unpaid — shall have any knowledge of forestry ; 

 so that, just as we have had a Dyes Commis- 

 sioner without special knowledge of the subject 

 with which he was concerned, the Forestry Com- 

 missioners may similarly become purely political 

 appointments. 



We are glad that there is one body which 

 watches national matters of this kind with the 

 view of promoting efficiency and economy by the 

 XO. 2597, VOL. I03'| 



right use of scientific knowledge and experience. 

 There is no group of men of science in the House 

 of Commons apart from that of the medical 

 members ; therefore it must be left to those out- 

 side the House to make strong representation of 

 their views when measures demand it. The 

 British Science Guild has done this in the case 

 of the Forestry Bill; and it is to be hoped that 

 the action taken will ensure that the Forestry 

 Authority will not be a purely amateur Board of 

 Commissioners, but will include men who have 

 had a sound scientific training and practical 

 knowledge of forestry conditions — particularly 

 those in the United Kingdom, with which the 

 Commissioners will be concerned. Such men 

 would secure adequate attention to forestry re- 

 search and education, and would in addition be 

 likely to see that the officers appointed upon the 

 staff are well quahfied to perform their duties. 

 But even with a Forestry Authority which included 

 Commissioners with expert knowledge, it would 

 be a decided advantage if all officers were selected 

 by an independent selection board. 



In forestry, as in other departments of applied 

 science, it is usual in this country to try to do 

 without the expert, and to call for his advice only 

 when compelled to do so by the failure of amateur 

 administrators. The common attitude towards 

 scientific and technical knowledge was expressed 

 by Lord Ancaster in the House of Lords when 

 he said recently : 



"The Government, instead of making up the 

 deficit in timber, seems to be chiefly engaged in 

 questions of research. He did not claim to be a 

 timber expert, but the thing was not so extra- 

 ordinarily difficult as to require so many scientific 

 gentlemen. There was no particular mystery 

 about how to produce timber. To make the 

 country self-supporting in the matter of timber, 

 the great thing was not to set up commissions 

 and lecturers, but to dig holes and plant the 

 trees." (Laughter.) 



The answer to this is that Lord Ancaster and 

 his class have been planting trees on this simple 

 plan for more than a hundred years, with the 

 result that "the annual yield for the 3,000,000 

 acres under woods in the United Kingdom was 

 only 45,000,000 cubic feet, or about one-third of 

 what it should have been under correct svlvi- 

 cultural treatment." (Reconstruction Report, 

 p. 4.) So far as it deals with training and re- 

 search, the Bill is, as Lord Haldane pointed out, 

 Lilliputian. The amount supposed to be spent in 

 research, which is really in a piteous condition 

 in this country, is about 6000Z. a year ! No par- 

 ticular sum is, however, guaranteed by the Bill 

 for this important work. 



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