large amounts of government timber except for what it will 

 actually bring at public auction in the open market. But," 

 continues the forester, "suppose that it would be practicable 

 and safe to sell all of the accessible yearly increase to fa- 

 vored purchasers for less than it is worth. The second rea- 

 son is that the consumer would be no better off." 



That is true. We hear it urged that if national forest tim- 

 ber were thrown freely on the market the country would get 

 cheaper lumber. Apart from the question of destroying our 

 capital stock of timber, is this proposition sound?" 



How could large quantities of inaccessible public stump- 

 age be sold in a market already fully stocked if not over- 

 stocked from private lands? Only by substantially giving it 

 away! Apart from the inevitable graft that would follow 

 there would be two results: 



/ 

 People Would Have to Pay. 



First, the owners of existing mills would stop cutting their 

 own timber in order to cut cheap public timber. The con- 

 sumer would be no better off, for but little more lumber would 

 be produced and prices would not be affected. Under pres- 

 ent competitive conditions in the manufacture of lumber and 

 the constant tendency to overproduction, no conceivable quan- 

 tity of public stumpage that could be sold would affect gen- 

 eral lumber prices. On the other hand ,the sale of cheap gov- 

 ernment stumpage would greatly increase the lumberman's 

 profit, and the difference would be taken from the pockets of 

 the people. 



The second result would be to throw away what public pro- 

 vision we have against the coming scarcity. No folly could 

 be greater. To commit it would leave the consumer power- 

 less to help himself in the future, and that without any use- 

 ful present result. It would benefit the large timber owner 

 by enhancing the value of his stumpage when the public 

 stumpage is exhausted, but it would not help the man who 

 needs a little lumber to get it cheaper than now. 



This course would play directly into the hands of the tim- 

 ber-holding corporations that are quietly acquiring the re- 

 maining timber in private ownership. Not only could they 

 operate their mills on public timber at enormous profits 



[H] 



