The British Columbia Timber Situation. 



US 



cent that the speculator makes the 

 people of British Columbia lose. These 

 limits were picked up as real nuggets. 

 The search for them was a "stampede;" 

 many of the men who located them 

 never planned to develop them; the 

 very spirit and object of the policy and 

 law is lost. 



(6) The province gets a high rental, 

 over 20 cents an acre, and gets a stump- 

 age if timber is cut. Thus this stam- 

 pede has led to a large revenue for the 

 province, and one which looks very 

 tempting to a district which has waited 

 a long, long time for "development." 



(7) The holders of limits are rapidly 

 "bonding," mortgaging, selling and 



The Remedy. 



Any modification of present legisla- 

 tion should consider both the people and 

 the holders of licenses. Legislation and 

 the practice under the law should be 

 fair and just to the holder of a license; 

 it should fully consider his rights and 

 equities; it should carefully determine 

 his real investment and what should 

 constitute a fair return on this. But 

 it should also consider the real owner 

 of the forest, the people; it should con- 

 sider the people's rights and equities 

 and it should not be misled into fallacies 

 by certain vicious practices which have 

 established themselves in the timber 

 ,.c ense business. 



Cedar Forest along the Columbia River, B.C. 



(Photo by E. Stewart) 



trading. They are selling and pawning 

 the property of the people. Their in- 

 vestment is a trifle; the people's prop- 

 erty .enormous. They are selling the 

 merchantable timber of the forest on a 

 rapidly rising market. They have 

 changed a mere permit into » deed; the 

 custom and practice of the Government 

 sanctions this. They are selling timber 

 they never bought. A man looks a sec- 

 tion of land with twenty million feet of 

 timber, he puts down a stake, pays a few 

 clerical fees and then turns around and 

 sells thirs twenty million feet of timber, 

 which he does not own at all, at $20,000 

 to some corporation. And this practice 

 the province sanctions in its present 

 law. 



(1) How far are the people — the 

 province — to-day the owner of the 

 forest? and 



(2) What can and should the people 

 do to safeguard their interest, both in 

 the marketable material and in the 

 growing forest and in the forest land ? 



These two questions should form the 

 first criterion of any measure suggested. 



(3n the whole, it would seem clear 

 that the ownership cjuestion is already 

 Vjeginning to be a mooted one; the law 

 claims the title of everything to rest in 

 the people ; the limit holder speaks of 

 the limit as his property and his invest- 

 ment. 



As to the development of the forest 

 as a property, the rental and royalty, 



