1908 



EDITORIAL 



ii 



puts at more than Sioo.OOO.ooo. Con- 

 trolling and utilizing our waters \v<>ul<l 

 enable us to save this sum and pro- 

 dtice annually a five-fold greater value. 



Kiver.s, instead of running wild, 

 may In- controlled almost like city 

 water. Such control, however, neces- 



ates National action and a compre- 

 hen-ive plan in which the conserva- 

 tion of forests upon slopes is essential. 



Thus the forest question underlies 

 and largely dominates not only the 

 question of wood, in all its forms, but 

 the questions of irrigation, drainage, 

 sil conservation and the control and 

 utilization of our inland waters. 



To say that the logical end of this 

 policy of destruction is public disaster 

 is to speak within bounds. A philoso- 

 pher has declared that "No nation 

 ever outlived its religion." However 

 this may be, it is self evident that no 

 nation can outlive its natural re- 

 sources. Again, it is a matter of his- 

 tory and observation that some nations 

 have sadly depleted their resources, 

 with serious consequences to them- 

 selves. The Mediterranean lands are 

 cases in point. The governor of a 

 Roman province was expected to 

 amass a fortune in a few. brief years. 

 His method involved the most bare- 

 faced and brutal exploitation of both 

 the people and the lands which were 

 thrown to him as so much spoil of 

 conquest. With him, the present was 

 everything; the future, nothing. 



Utopia 

 vs. China 



The lesson taught by 

 China should be learned 

 and never forgotten. In 

 these days of evolution philosophy we 

 are prone to assume that time only, 

 coupled with industry, will bear us, as 

 a Nation, forward irresistibly toward 

 a state closely approximating the ideal. 

 We habitually look at the past through 

 the large end of the telescope and at 

 the future, through the small end. We 

 do not reflect that a crescendo move- 

 ment may be followed by a diminu- 

 endo. 



P.tit look at China. Unquestionably, 

 she has been great and powerful ; 



Otherwise >he could n< ,t, as an undi- 

 vided nation, have survived to her 

 present prodigious age. 

 would argue that her progress has 

 brought her to approximate national 

 perfection, and the hope that >he may 

 even yet approach such a is 



dampened by inquiry into the fa 

 her economic li 1 



In northern China. ially, the 



mountains, from ba.-e to -ummit. have- 

 been swept as bare of forests as arc 

 our city pavements. In consequei; 

 they have been -a -lied and gullied by 

 fierce torrents. Floods have devastated 

 the valleys. Wood has become so rare 

 as to be confined largely to the making 

 of coffins, for which purpose it 

 borne .on human backs down rugged 

 slopes and defiles in journeys of some- 

 times ten days or two weeks. Fagots 

 for fuel are a luxury of the rich. 

 Grass, dug up by the roots from re- 

 mote mountains, and stubble raked 

 clean from harvested fields, constitute 

 the chief forms of fuel. Farming is 

 done on mountain sides on which soil. 

 brought by flood waters or human 

 hands, is held in terraces by stone- 

 walls, laboriously constructed. I\i\< 

 go dry in summer. Areas of their 

 empty beds are then fenced in. Soil 

 is caught in these when the river is 

 full again and. on the recession of the 

 water, is tilled. 



Little wonder that such a land is 

 the prey of famine, that the traveler 

 passes through successive villages abso- 

 lutely destitute of human inhabitant-.; 

 and that, even in the more favored re- 

 gions, the parent, upon the birth of a 

 female child. frequcntlv debate^ 

 whether to drown it outright, or leave 

 it to be carried away by the next 

 famine. 



Let those who have hugged t . 

 themselves the delusion that 

 alone, combined with industrial activ- 

 ity on present lines, will inevitably 

 convert our land into an earthly para- 

 dise: and that such earnest warnii- 

 as- those, for example, of the Presi- 

 dent, in his last message, are but the 

 wailings of Cassandra, look at China 

 and think. 



