FOREST POLICY. 25 



between the various manufacturers is so keen, to the detriment 

 of lumber prices, as not to allow of any increase in the logging 

 expenses, incurred for the benefit of a second cut on the same 

 grounds. 



7. The American lumber market is continuously overstocked 

 comparatively speaking. The per capita production of lumber 

 in America is from ten to fifteen times larger than the per capita 

 production of lumber in European countries practising conser- 

 vative forestry. It is through "combinations in restraint of trade" 

 that the price of lumber is being maintained all over Germany. 

 The various state governments, being timber owners, are parties 

 to these compacts which would be considered illegal in the 

 United States. 



If we desire to produce in the United States the same state of 

 affairs with regard to the production of lumber, we shall be 

 obliged to allow or rather to create combinations similar to those 

 existing in the old country. 



Many are the cases in which European Governments force the 

 owners of woodlands to cut no more timber than the equivalent 

 of the annual growth. In most of the American states, any com- 

 bination of capitalists agreeing to cut no more timber than the 

 forests are producing annually would come in conflict with the 

 anti-trust laws. 



8. Uncertainty of tariff laws. 



We are in the habit of comforting ourselves in America, in 

 view of the waning timber supply, with the idea that timber may 

 be imported from Canada and from Mexico when our supplies 

 are exhausted. 



Granting that such importation is possible: What inducement 

 exists for the owner of timber land to produce at a great expense 

 what can be imported, with the present rates of cheap transpor- 

 tation, from foreign countries? The agitation of the newspapers 

 against the tariff on lumber, and against a tariff on wood pulp 

 and chemical fibre is well-known ; and the party platforms in 

 1908 contained a plank favorable to a reduction of the tariff 

 on many wood goods. 



Whilst the tariff is not very high, the general anxiety to set 

 it aside can be interpreted by the owners of wood goods or of 

 forests only as a deterrent from investments in conservative for- 



