PROPRIETORSHIP OF THE LAND. 23 



have attempted to make timber merchants pay for damage 

 done to roads on account of specially heavy traffic. Such an 

 attempt is absolutely unfair, and, it is to be hoped, unlawful. 

 Planted land pays rates and taxes for a long series of years 

 during which it causes no traffic. If the proprietor, or timber 

 merchant, which comes to the same thing, is called upon 

 to pay extra for traffic when the crop becomes mature, he is 

 made to pay rates twice over. The matter must be fought out, 

 either in the law courts, or in Parliament. 



~b. The Slate as Proprietor. 



It has often been urged that the State should acquire large 

 areas of surplus lands and put them under forest. Indeed, 

 an enthusiastic gentleman actually proposed that Parliament 

 should vote one million pounds a year for the next hundred 

 years, so as to purchase and afforest seven million acres of 

 land. I do not go as far as that, but I think that the State 

 could do something in that direction. From time to time 

 suitable tracts of land come into the market, and there is, in 

 my opinion, no reason why the State should not acquire such 

 land. On the whole, however, cases of that kind are com- 

 paratively rare in England, but probably more numerous 

 in Scotland. In Ireland the State could do something 

 substantial in connection with the carrying into effect the 

 latest Irish Land Act. Many of the estates, especially in 

 the congested districts, contain large areas of waste land 

 which are not required by the new proprietors. Such areas 

 might be acquired by the State and converted into State 

 forests. The price of such land would probably be less than 

 1 an acre. No doubt, such a procedure would be beset by 

 difficulties, especially in the beginning. It has been said that 

 the adjoining farmers would destroy the plantations, but the 

 difficulty can be overcome by making it the interest of the 

 surrounding population to preserve the woods. The forests 

 will provide additional work, and by and by tend to create 



