280 EEPOET OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



deputy overseers any officials appointed and paid by the railroads to 

 take an active part in the protection of fish and game, and already the 

 Algoma and Hudson Bay Railway Company, after consultation with 

 your Commissioner, has taken advantage of this offer to appoint such 

 an officer. At the present time, also, the managements of some of the 

 greatest railroads, operating in this Province, have under consideration 

 plans for assisting the authorities in a parallel direction, and your Com- 

 missioner hopes that before the presentation of his full report these 

 plans will have matured, and taken definite shape, so that he will be 

 enabled to present them therein. 



Your Commissioner would reiterate once more that, to develop and 

 exploit the natural advantages of the Province in fish and game, cli- 

 mate and scenery, to make barren and wild lands productive of a great 

 income to the Province, and to build on solid foundations, which will 

 secure the fruits of these efforts to all future generations, it is necessary 

 that, not only should the officers of the various Government Depart- 

 ments, nearly or remotely interested, most cordially co-operate, but that 

 the interest of the public must be awakened, and its co-operation so- 

 licited and won, which can only be effected by educating the public to a 

 realization of the issues at stake. 



The storehouse of nature, filled witli treasures of incalculable 

 value, are none the less exhaustible. The history of this continent 

 has proved that the wanton destruction of to-day but spells the extinc- 

 tion of a whole species to-morrow. To bring the people to a realiza- 

 tion of these matters should be the ambition and care of a government, 

 and hand-in-hand with an aggressive educative policy for tliis purpose 

 there should be adopted a policy of conservation, framed on broad lines, 

 such as those pictured by President Roosevelt in his instructions to the 

 National Conservation Commission, on its creation in 1908, when he 

 wrote: 



" Our object is to conserve the foundations of our prosperitj^ We 

 intend to use these resources, but to use them so as to conserve them. 

 No effort should be made to limit the wise and proper development and 

 application of these resources; every effort should be made to prevent 

 destruction, to reduce waste, and to distribute the enjoyment of our 

 natural wealth in such a way as to promote the greatest good to the 

 greatest number for the longest time." 



Your Commissioner would, therefore, most strongly recommend 

 that : 



1. The officials of all Government departments, nearly or remotely 

 connected with matters appertaining to the protection of fish, game 

 and birds, be instructed to co-operate, cordially and loj^ally, with the 

 officials of the Department of Game and Fisheries. 



2. The Department of Agriculture, together with the Department of 

 Game and Fisheries, undertake the education of the people to the eco- 

 nomic value of the birds, as the safeguards of agriculture, and of fish 



