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Canadian Fon'shij Journal, Januari/, 1918 



Loaning Money On Limits 



A Plain Talk To Bankers by Mr. Ellwood Wilson, 

 Chief Forester of the Laurentide Company. 



Editor's Note. — A special meeting 

 of members of the Canadian Bankers' 

 Association was arranged by the 

 Canadian Forestry Association in 

 Montreal for December 14th. Re- 

 presentatives were present from most 

 of the leading financial institutions. 

 Mr. Wilson " kindly undertook to 

 address the meeting on the subject 

 of "A Financial Analysis of Fores- 

 try". Mr. E. L. Pease, President of 

 the Canadian Bankers' Association 

 acted as Chairman. 



Bankers are practical men, men 

 whose language is dollars and cents, 

 the only profession which does not 

 allow a limit of error. Your books 

 and accounts must balance to a cent. 

 When the physicist or engineer makes 

 a measurement, he knows that it 

 cannot be absolutely accurate and 

 allows for a certain amount of error 

 and works with it always in view, he 

 says that his work is correct to so and 

 so many places of decimals. Not so 

 the Banker, he works to two places 

 and has no margin of error whatever. 



Now I want to interest you in one 

 of the most vital and practical pro- 

 blems which confronts Canada to- 

 day. It is not necessary with an 

 audience like this to go into statistics 

 and details of the magnitude of our 

 lumbering, pulp and paper and wood- 

 working industries. You all know it, 

 it is you gentlemen who finance these. 

 All I need ^ay is that our industries 

 dependent for their raw material on 

 our forests are second only to agri- 

 culture and in the number of men 

 employed are first. Your interest, 

 therefore, in this matter is a very real 

 one, and your influence in the proper 

 use and conservation of this important 

 natural resource is very great indeed. 

 If you are interested, your clients also 

 must be, perforce. 



Worked Like a Mine 

 One or two facts in this connection 

 stand out strongly and I will state 

 them categorically. Our timber sup- 

 ply is not inexhaustible. In the past, 

 our forests have been treated like 

 mines to be worked to exhaustion 

 and then left. They should be treat- 

 ed as an agricultural crop taking a 

 long time to mature and should be 

 properly handled so as to insure a 

 perpetual supply. We are cutting 

 and burning at present, more than our 

 annual growth in every Province, 

 except British Columbia. We are 

 operating so as to gradually make 

 commercially extinct our most valu- 

 able species; oak has practically 

 disappeared from our markets; white 

 pine is rapidly following and spruce 

 will be the next to go. A practical 

 and rational policy may be adopted 

 at the earliest possible moment and 

 in this you can be of the greatest 

 service. The war has taught us that 

 timber is absolutely essential for 

 offence and defence. Now we must 

 have timber supplies for the future 

 and we should have sense enough to 

 get together the men who know about 

 these matters, the men who are in- 

 terested in financing the dependent 

 industries and the men who are 

 operating, and work out a proper 

 general policy and see that proper 

 legislation is enacted to put the policy 

 into force. This will naturally entail 

 higher cost«i for raw material which 

 must be met by increased cost of 

 product to the consumer and the 

 gene' dl prblic must be educated as to 

 their resr.onsibility in the matter. 



\\e krtow what our present [con 

 sumptHn of wood for all purposes is, 

 pretb closely, and there is no reason 

 in history or in our own experience to 

 make ms think that we shall ever 

 need any less; the probability is that 



