REQUIREMENTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 43 



Arctic Circle, where the growth is very slow, and where 

 the means of getting the produce to market are yet com- 

 paratively undeveloped. Leaving out the State forests 

 altogether, and confining ourselves to the better-managed 

 forest properties of the large Swedish saw-mill companies, 

 it is few of them that yet show an annual profit of more 

 than 3s. an acre. That this is capable of considerable 

 increase, when regard is had to the fine waterways of the 

 country, goes without saying. One important factor for 

 achieving this increase of profit is now being found in the 

 development of the wood-pulp trade, whereby a remunera- 

 tive market is found at home for the small spruce wood. 

 Hitherto the only market of any appreciable magnitude 

 for this immature wood, or thinnings as they are called, 

 has been either in the form of pit props or small square 

 balks for Egypt or North Germany, for which the prices 

 obtained in situ have been so low that nothing was left 

 for the wood after the expense of getting it to the sea- 

 board had been deducted, unless it grew in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the waterways or railway. 



' It has been urged that a large portion of the props 

 and pit wood used in the mines of the United Kingdom 

 ought to be, and could be, advantageously produced at 

 home. At present prices it is probable that this can only 

 be done where the cost of transport to the collieries is 

 low. For wood of this description the cost of transport 

 plays the greatest rule, and efforts will have to be directed 

 towards getting the very high rate of carriage on British 

 railways reduced. As compared with German and 

 Swedish State lines, the cost of carrying pit wood and 

 props in the United Kingdom is very high — in many 

 cases double — for distances of one hundred miles and 

 over. Of course, the comparison between the cost of 

 transport on the Swedish waterways and British railways 

 is still more unfavourable to the latter, and this fact will 



