42 Government Forestry Abroad. [226 



AUSTRALIA. 



Before touching on the matter of forest manage- 

 ment in certain of the English colonies, it is of inter- 

 est to note the relations of timber import and export 

 throughout the British Empire. These are given by 

 Dr. Schlich 1 for the average of the five years from 

 1884-88 as follows: 



Imports United Kingdom 15,000,000 



British Colonies 1,466,000 



Total 16,466,000 



Exports Dominion of Canada 4,025,000 



Other Colonies 713,000 



Total 4,738,000 



Excess of imports over exports 11,728,000, or $56,800,000. 



It should be noted that this table is not quite com- 

 plete, but it will answer all the purposes of illustra- 

 tion, and the light which it throws on the general 

 timber supply of the world is exceedingly interesting, 

 even if it be not alarming. 



Forest legislation in Australia is still in a transi- 

 tion state. It has already had time to correct some 

 of its earlier mistakes, and the course which it is 

 following will certainly lead to a satisfactory forest 

 policy in the end. 



In the colony of South Australia an act was passed 

 in 1873 dealing, as such preliminary legislation gen- 

 erally has dealt in recent times, with the encourage- 

 ment of tree planting. A forest board was estab- 

 lished in 1875 and a conservator of forests in 1877; 

 and in 1882 '-'The Woods and Forest Act" became 



1 Lecture before the Royal Colonial Institute on March 11, 1890. 

 My information on the forest policy of the Australian colonies is 

 derived from the same source. 



