166 OUR VANISHING FORESTS 



volved, but at the prospect of regulating the 

 bituminous industry the neighboring miners of West 

 Virginia became so jubilant that the Pennsylvania 

 legislature promptly changed its mind. The much 

 celebrated law of competition became an incubus 

 which threatened the whole conservation idea. 



"But," we are told, "the heartless lumbermen 

 must be regulated to prevent them from devastating 

 the remaining forests. Let Congress pass a law for 

 all the states and for all the lumber industry. Make 

 a set of regulations, or several different sets apply- 

 ing to different sections of the country, and then tax 

 everyone who conforms thereto at a merely nominal 

 rate per thousand feet of timber cut. Make the 

 non-conformists pay a tax ten to twenty times as 

 high. That will bring them into line." Somehow 

 or other Congress has not as yet waxed enthusiastic 

 regarding this plan. If everyone must simultane- 

 ously adopt more expensive methods, the lumber 

 industry will be obliged to shift the cost to the 

 consuming public, and each congressional constitu- 

 ency will have something to say to its representative 

 and its senator who helped pass the law. Our 

 farming communities are fifty per cent, underbuilt 

 and our cities all complain of a housing shortage 

 because people cannot afford the cost of building 

 materials. If Congress proposes to pass legislation 



