282 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



The Eoyal Commissioners, seeing the hopelessness of 

 brinti'iuir about the afforestation of the millions of acres which 

 our present " landlord system " has made waste, have, after a 

 most exhaustive inquiry into the entire question, very sensibly 

 and ([uite fearlessly recommended the acquisition, by com- 

 pulsory sale, of 9,000,000 acres of suitable lands in various 

 parts of the country. 



The Eeport, which, by-the-by, is a common-sense, level-headed 

 document from cover to cover, goes so fully into the questions 

 as practically to leave nothing more to be said. It points out, 

 among other things, the improbability of sylviculture ever 

 becoming a popular form of investment for private individuals, 

 because it takes a long time to reap the full reward of invest- 

 ment — eighty years — and also because of the practical impossi- 

 bility of ensuring " continuity in the system of management." 



That these two causes have perhaps almost entirely resulted 

 in the eminently unsatisfactory condition in which we find 

 British sylviculture to-day — although this part of the land 

 industry is the worst in Europe — seems beyond doubt, and 

 as British landlords have, for these and other reasons of an 

 equally detrimental nature, allow^ed a great industry to fall 

 away into nothingness, during the last one hundred years or 

 so, they are hardly the men one would call upon to set up in 

 Grreat Britain a scheme of afforestation which would result in a 

 universal system of sylviculture of a nature that would stand 

 the country in good stead in the days to come. As wdth food 

 supplies, so with timber ; we are practically dependent to-day 

 upon the foreigner for most of our wood ; and as it appears 

 certain from the works of the best authorities on the subject 

 that timber is becoming scarce in most of the great producing 

 countries, this country will, in the future, have to become 

 practically self-sustaining in many kinds of this widely used 

 commodity. 



Sylviculture : Compulsory Sals recommended 



As part of the great land industry, sylviculture then 

 becomes as essential as arable cultivation in the common 

 interests of the country, and the Commission, rightly regarding 

 the present system of land tenures, the landlord system, or 

 whatever term we prefer to employ in the connection, as being 

 impossible, they unhesitatingly recommend the only system 

 likely to meet the requirements of the case, namely, Comimhory 

 sale and iiurchase. 



" Sylviculture in the United Kingdom is an enterprise which 

 rarely appeals to the private landowner or capitalist. The prolonged 



