1907 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS, FORESTS AND MINES. 239 



Export Duties After Reciprocity . 



The Reciprocity Treaty witli the United States, under which, as will 

 be hereafter shown, the exportation of forest products, more especially sawn 

 lumber, had greatly increased, expired on the 17th March, 1866. By the 

 new tariff, which came into force on the 27th of June, export duties were 

 imposed on saw logs and shingle bolts shipped from Canada, excepting to 

 ■any of the British North American Provinces, at the rate of |1.00 on every 

 thousand feet, board measure, for pine, and 50 cents for every thousand 

 feet, board measure, for spruce. The first tariff adopted under Confedera- 

 tion during the session of 1868, imposed additional export duties on timber 

 from the 1st of October in that year, as follows : — 



Shingle bolts, per cord of 128 cubic feet |1 00 



Stave bolts, per cord of 128 cubic feet 1 00 



Oak logs, per M • 2 00 



Spruce logs, per M ,. 1 00 



Pine logs, pe^r M. ... 1 00 



Confederation. 



By the Confederation of the British North American Provinces, consum- 

 mated by the establishment of the Dominion of Canada on July 1st, lS67, 

 the management of public lands and timber was relegated to the several 

 Provincial administrations. The British North America Act, 1867, in defin- 

 ing the respective powers of the Dominion and Provincial Governments 

 includes, among the subjects coming exclusively within the scope of the 

 Provincial legislators, "The management and sale of the public lands 

 belonging to the Province, and of the timber and wood thereon." As will 

 have been noted, from the frequent references to legislative action and quo- 

 tations of official utterances during the few years which preceded the union 

 of the Provinces, a very considerable advance had been made in public 

 opinicta on the subject of forestry. The question was being intelligently 

 studied in all its bearings by those charged with the responsibilities of legis- 

 lation. Men were beginning to understand the true remedy for evils which 

 had been developed, not so much bv any positive neglect or misconduct on 

 the part of those in charge of affairs, but rather as the result of crude, 

 unscientific methods under which the distinction between the two classes 

 of public land requiring essentially different systems of management "svas 

 largely ignored. Public, or at least legislative and influential sentiment, 

 appeared to be seriously aroused to the danger to the practical interests of 

 the country to be entailed by the rapid disappearance of the forests cover- 

 ing the non-agricultural region and forming its only possible source of pro- 

 ductiveness, and to be fast crystallizing in the direction of a system of 

 scientific forest management, as distinct from methods of mere sale and 

 exploitation. 



Provincial Jurisdiction. — Agricultural avid Forest/ Lands. 



But with the. advent of the larger and more agitating questions involv- 

 ing the rise and fall of parties, and culminating in the union of the pre- 

 viously isolated provinces, opening broader vistas for Canadian aspirations 

 and enterprises, and introducing a host of additional responsibilities and 

 fresh problems, it is not surprising that the matter of forest preservation was 

 thrust into the background, and for many years thereafter received but 



