"In 1913 the quantities of timber and grain imported were 

 about equal and headed the list of imports. They absorbed 

 between them a quarter of the total snipping which entered 

 British ports from overseas. In 1916 the people were hungry, 

 yet, despite the most strenuous efforts to set more ships free 

 for importing grain, it was found impossible to reduce by even 

 one per cent, the proportion of shipping required to carry the 

 timber essential for operations of war abroad and at home. 

 Napoleon's maxim that an army marches on its belly had to 

 be brought up to date. The Great War showed that the belly 

 can only move on wood and iron of which wood is required 

 in far greater bulk. Not till arrangements had been made for 

 supplying the requirements of the army from the French forests 

 and the home demand by ruthless felling of the old and young 

 woods in the United Kingdom could tonnage be released for 

 further imports of food." 



In 1915 a committee was appointed to expedite home fell- 

 ings and it soon became evident that owing to the depletion 

 of home resources a national forest policy based on considera- 

 tions of public safety was inevitable after the war. It was this 

 realization that induced the steps which subsequently led to 

 the present efforts to restore permanent and adequate forests 

 in Great Britain. 



This policy, based on national insurance has, the Commis- 

 sion points out, as cogent arguments in its favour in time 

 of peace as in time of war. 



"The timber consumed in Great Britain and by the British 

 Army in France between the years 1915-1920," says the 

 Commission, "cost the country at least 190,000,000 more 

 than a similar amount of wood would have cost at 1909-1913 

 prices. In the year 1920 the Nation imported approximately 

 one-tenth less wood and pulp than in 1914 and paid over 

 80,000,000 more for their purchase. 



"There is no reason to suppose," it is added, "that the 

 average annual demands for timber for house construction, 

 delayed repairs and industrial developments will be less in 

 the next decade than they were during the five years immedi- 

 ately preceding the war. If this is the case, and the price of 

 timber does not fall much below a figure midway between the 

 1913 and 1920 prices, we shall have to pay for the whole of 

 the period of 1915-1920 anything between 400,000,000 and 



