The Tenure of Licenses. 



149 



over-production; but more serious and 

 more permanent would be the loss sus- 

 tained by the province as a whole bv 

 the irreparable damage it would bring 

 to the forests themselves and to the 

 provincial forest revenues. 



My suggestion for remedy I quote 

 from the '"Xews-Advertiser's" report of 

 my address before the Canadian Club 

 last autumn. 



"Let the license-holder be given the 

 option for a period of, say, ten years of 

 renewing his license as per the present 

 law. or of converting it into a license 

 renewable from year to year without 

 time-limit, as now obtains on Dominion 

 lands, with the provision that the log- 

 ging, whenever undertaken, be con- 

 ducted in conformity with plans ap- 

 proved by the Provincial Forest De- 

 partment. Special and reasonable pro- 

 vision must, of course, be made for the 

 clearing of timber from lands suitable 

 for and actually needed for agricultural 

 settlement." 



The License Fee. 

 Foresters are everywhere agreed that 

 next to the fire the greatest enemy of 

 forest conser^'ation is high annual taxa- 

 tion. High taxation places a premium 

 on hasty and uneconomical logging, 

 with a view to the abandonment of the 

 land after it has been stripped of what- 

 ever has any market value at the time. 



The British Columbian case is com- 

 plicated by the fact that the high license 

 fee is essentially a method of paying for 

 the timber on the instalment plan, and 

 cannot now be changed without un- 

 fairly discriminating in favor of the 

 licensee, desirable as such a course might 

 be from the standpoint of forest con- 

 .servation. It is a matter in regard to 

 which we, as a province, have started 

 on the wrong tack, and we will have 

 to pay the price. 



Provision should, however, be made 

 for the reduction of the annual license 

 fee to a nominal rate on all cut-over 

 lands, whether under lease or license, 

 which are logged according to plans ap- 

 proved by the Forest Department, in 

 order that operators may find it good 

 business to log carefully and otherwise 

 care for their cut-over lands with a view 

 to returning later to cut a second and 

 succeeding crops of logs. 



How impossible it would be for lum- 

 bermen to hold cut-over lands for 



second crops of logs with any hope of 

 profit under the present taxation will be 

 appreciated when it is recalled that an 

 annual tax of SI -10 per year for thirty 

 years amounts (at 8 per cent, com- 

 pound inerest) to §16,600 in thirty 

 years; $40,180 in forty years; $86,600 

 in fifty years; vS 19 1,040 in sixty years; 

 and it takes fully fifty years to' grow a 

 lumber tree even in British Columbia I 



The Royalty. 

 The royalty is capable of being 

 adapted as an ideal method of forest 

 taxation. The royalty as at present col- 

 lected has two defects, viz. : (1) It bears 

 relativel}- more heavily during seasons 

 of low prices than when prices are 

 higher, and (2) assesses as high a rate 

 on the comparatively worthless top- 

 log as on the log which gives a large 

 proportion of flooring or finish. A 

 royalty assessed as a per cent, of the 

 f. o. b. value of the mill product is not 

 subject to either objection. For ex- 

 ample, if the royalty rate be 3 per cent., 

 the royalty payable on all low-grade 

 material averaging $10 per thousand at 

 the mill will be but thirty cents per 

 thousand, while the royalty on flooring 

 and finish will average between $1.00 

 and SI. 51^ per thousand. This would 

 tend to encourage the utilisation of low- 

 grade logs. Thus, too, a falling of 

 prices will bring with it automatically 

 a slight lessening of the cost of produc- 

 tion, while an impro\'ement in prices 

 will bring automatical!}^ an increased 

 revenue. 



As the values of forest products in- 

 crease in price from time to time, it is 

 right that the provincial treasury 

 should reap increased revenues. A per- 

 cental royalty on the value of the pro- 

 duct gives this earned increase auto- 

 matically in large measures, though the 

 provinces should ever reserve the right 

 to increase the percental rate should 

 increased stumpage values call for such 

 a course. 



Cutting Regul.\tions. 

 The adoption of general cutting regu- 

 lations, having in view a reproduction 

 of the forest, applicable to all licenses or 

 even all licenses in any given district, 

 is not desirable. Forest conditions vary 

 indefinitely even within small areas 

 and efficient cutting regulations can only 

 be prescribed for particular tracts after 



