338 



THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



Spurious free 

 trade depre- 

 cated. 



Replanting 

 advocated. 



Destructive 

 fluence can 

 arrested by 

 legislation. 



assuredly move to where all four are found together. The remedy 

 seems to be that our politicians should cease to focus their short- 

 sighted eyes on the petty, small, and selfish doctrines of so-called 

 and obsolete free trade, which is not free trade at all, but the 

 protection of one class and the sacrifice of others — to wit, the 

 dwellers on the soil. The replanting with trees (which ' do be 

 growing while we are a-sleeping ') of one quarter of our islands now 

 lying waste would not be the least important or least reproduc- 

 tive undertaking for our Government to adopt. Even if the 

 forests of the whole world were in a state of original productive- 

 ness this would be economically profitable ; but in view of the 

 rapid exhaustion of the forests of foreign countries and our own 

 colonies, is it not an imperative duty of our Government to look 

 forward and restore the forests at home ? Even fuel will become 

 dear in a measurable time, owing to the great depth of the coal 

 seams still unworked, and every stick grown will become more 

 and more valuable, as in Germany, where it pays even to stub up 

 the roots of the trees for firewood. In Ireland the case is even 

 more deplorable. The poHticians who should work for the interests 

 of the people by protection of the staple products, corn and beef, 

 play into the hands of the free-traders, so-called, who would un- 

 people the fields. Naturally the able-bodied inhabitants are 

 adjourning to America, where Protection flourishes. The land is 

 becoming waste, and every tree is being cut down. Even the 

 game, which if protected would bring in wealth (as in Scotland), 

 is being carefully exterminated, while the politicians seek to gain 

 power and wealth by preaching disloyalty, hoping to weary out 

 the democracy of England and its opportunist Government into 

 further spoliation of the landed interests. 



The restoration of forests is the only possible influence on 

 climate which may delay the inevitable doom of all plant and 

 tree life on the earth and its relapse into barren desert — a relapse 

 now steadily progressing, partly through the destructive energy of 

 the British race all over the world. It is time that some check 

 were put by legislation to such devastation and waste, which, 

 with redoubled force, is constantly increasing. The freedom of 

 man to lay waste the resources of Nature and appropriate its 

 rich stores to his present use for present gain, entirely regardless 

 of future generations, and entirely neglecting to replant — that is 



