112 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



' The entire lumbering operation from the forest to the shipping dock or car, 

 should be under the watchful eye of our own Government. If our heritage is 

 well managed, Canada should hold two valuable assets for all time; one, timber 

 that will help to supply the world with lumber and paper; the other a beautiful 

 country that will attract the tourist and sportsman, the lover of nature, to her 

 shores from every part of the civilized world. 



Try to imagine the vast areas of this great country which perennially delight 

 the eye, shorn of the refreshing greenness of spring and the dazzling color of the 

 fall. The country bare and ugly, an everlasting subject of reproach to the present 

 generation. The senseless and wicked waste of nature's free gifts, their selfish 

 application to the profit of the immediate generation, seen everywhere. Soon 

 we should have no birds, no deer, no moose, no cariboo, for, though most carefully 

 constructed, the game laws are insufficient, owing to the extraordinary lack of 

 conscience which seems to animate the present generation; and while this lack of 

 conscience exists it is absolutely necessary that a proper number of wardens and 

 officers should be appointed to see that these laws are kept. Let there be forest 

 laws strict and just, and strict observance thereof. 



The present unsatisfactory state of things can only be finally remedied by an 

 early inculcation of the duty which each generation owes to its successor. Let us 

 teach the child at school from his earliest years of understanding, that the in- 

 valuable gifts of nature are only on loan to him, not there for his consumption and 

 destruction. 



The commercial aspect of the question even a child can seize. The actual 

 money value of each year's production and consumption of fish and game in Canada 

 must be (about) $75,000,000. Our fur industry is of vast importance. Are we 

 going to endanger these? Why should we not have an export duty on furs? 



But I must return to the main point. The opposition to the imposition of an 

 export duty on the raw material, as a means of stopping the denudation of our 

 forest lands, is unpatriotic in its fullest sense. Such people apparently wish, not 

 only to destroy the beautiful and the useful, but also to baulk the immense industries 

 which may develop by keeping the manufacture of lumber and pulp and paper 

 in this country. The sportsman says to the Government: "Stop the export of 

 raw material, force the mill owner to manufacture in Canada, attend to forest cul- 

 ture as you have to agriculture, and I will be satisfied." Moreover, an export 

 duty and strict supervision leaves a Government in a good defensive position 

 when it is called upon (as it will be) to face an angry electorate, and to explain why 

 the country is being robbed of two of its finest assets, which explanation will be 

 demanded in the very near future. 



Let us examine the work of our cousins over the border. Till quite recently, 

 they supplied the world with lumber and finished paper from pulp wood. This 

 brought them in millions of dollars. To-day both lumber and pulpwood are nearly 

 exhausted, certain parts quite exhausted. To-morrow they will have to spend 

 millions annually for both lumber and pulpwood. Until lately, sportsmen and 

 tourists came to the United States from all parts of the world to hunt big game, 

 to admire the scenic beauty found in her forest-clothed mountains, east and west, 

 and to angle in her splendid streams and lakes. Those sportsmen brought in 

 millions of dollars; five millions of dollars annually to one State alone, we are told. 

 That simple tool, the axe, has nearly destroyed these two sources of revenue. In 

 justice to the American people, I must say that this destruction was largely the 

 result of a thoughtlessness of which we are now guilty ourselves. 



Recently I discussed this question in all its bearings with prominent American 



