water, pasture, and other resources and the country is given 

 twenty-five per cent of all receipts from the forests for schools 

 and roads, and an additional ten per cent is expended upon 

 roads. In consequence of this policy, public opinion has un- 

 dergone a decided change. 



The theoretical stage of conservation has passed. It is now 

 a household word and in the abstract in greatest good to the 

 greatest number and that for the longest time is universally 

 accepted. The principle too of the intervention of govern- 

 ment to protect from waste and destruction our invaluable 

 natural resources is firmly established. But' in the practical 

 working out of conservation we continually see economics 

 locking horns in an issue which leaves the on-lookers thor- 

 oughly nonplused as to the merits of the case. One wishes 

 these questions cou-d be simplified like the fairy tales we tell 

 children, no intricate conditions involved, no balancing of 

 conflicting interests, but where the fairy is wholly good and 

 the ogre thoroughly bad. 



The Hetch Hetchy Valley is a case in point where opinion 

 was so divided, one knew not where justice lay. Another 

 case is the Roanoke River Dam Bill (S. 2425) which has just 

 been reported from the Senate Committee on Commerce by 

 our Senator Nelscn and carries the approval, dated Jan. 17, of 

 the Secretary of War, Hon. Lindley Garrison, The National 

 Conservation Association has sent out a warning: "If this bill 

 becomes a law in its present form, it is likely to be the most 

 serious blow Conservation has received since it became a 

 National question." The bill we are told "fails to compensate 

 the public for valuable natural assets placed in private hands, 

 and fails to protect the consumers through proper regulation.' 

 How to deal with water power sites is, Secretary Lane admits, 

 one of the most perplexing problems that confronts his de- 

 partment. His solution is to lease these sites at nominal 

 rental for a term of years with provision for their eventual 

 reversion to the government. With our fine undeveloped wa- 

 ter power in Minnesota, this is a vital question to us. Without 

 making individual examination of these various measures, our 

 organization stands committed in a general way to advocacy of 

 bills approved by the National Conservation Association, and 



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