Address of the President. 181 



Thirty-five years ago the population of the United States was 

 only about forty-one millions and now it is over eighty millions, 

 while that of Germany was forty millions and is now sixty-one 

 millions. In both of these cases, the United States and Germany 

 had thirty-five years ago, more than sufficient timber of home 

 growth to supply all their internal requirements, but now they 

 have become, owing to their increase of population and industries, 

 far from self supporting, and are more or less dependent on the 

 supplies of other countries. 



" Then, the American resources seemed ample; now they have 

 become so diminished as to have given rise to great and well 

 founded anxiety for the 'future. This shortage in home grown 

 wood must be supplied by imports ; and as the great bulk of the 

 timber required by ourselves and by these, our two great com- 

 petitors is the light wood of coniferous trees, of which the chief 

 stores are now to be found in Canada, Russia and Scandinavia, 

 the amount we shall have to pay for this class of timber, (which 

 constitutes about 90% of our wood imports), must be, to a con- 

 siderable extent, determined by the requirements of the United 

 States and Germany and by the price to which they will raise 

 this raw material at the sea ports in the countries having surplus 

 timber available for export." 



He goes on to say, "that unless Great Britain can arrange 

 some sort of preferential treatment with Canada for her timber 

 exports, there is every probability that the annual sum she will 

 have to pay for her national timber bill will be very much greater 

 than at present, and how large this sum already is, seems not 

 to be generally realized." 



It is an extraordinary thing that notwithstanding the in- 

 creased use of stone, cement, brick and iron for building pur- 

 poses, the per capita use of timber has gone on increasing annual- 

 ly within recent years. In this connection the same writer says: 

 "In 1882 the population of the British Isles was thirty-five and a 

 half millions, and the timber exports were 1S,300,000L; in 1903 

 the population was forty-two and a quarter millions, and they 

 imported wood and timber to the value of 29,300,000L, thus 

 showing a rise of over 50% in the total value of the imports as 

 compared with an increase of only 19% in the total population." 



A Committee on Forestry, appointed by the Home Govern- 

 ment in its report in 1902, says; "The world is rapidly approach- 

 ing a shortage, if not actual dearth, in its supply of coniferous 

 timl)er, which constitutes between 80 and 90% of the total 

 British imports." 



With the nations of Europe looking to us for a future supply; 

 with the ever increasing demand from South America and the 

 Orient and perhaps more important than all, the increase in 



