British Columbia Timber Royalties 



The Timber Royalty Act, fixint; 

 new royalties on different classes of 

 timber, has been introduced in the 

 British L'ohijnbia Legislature by Hon. 

 AV. R. Ross. Minister of Lands. 



The Minister, in introducing the 

 Bill, pointed out that tlie plan adopt- 

 eil came as the result of long, careful 

 study and consultation with lumber- 

 men and timber owners. He said he 

 had never looked on this question 

 merely as a means of raising money, 

 but as fundamentally affecting forest 

 policy. He desired to do three things 

 in this Bill : 



' First, so to settle this royalty question 

 as to insure to the highest practical degree 

 the welfare of all the people in British Col- 

 umbia as far as the forests contribute to 

 their welfare, and that is very far. Second, 

 so to handle this question that the Govern- 

 ment co-operates to the fullest legitimate 

 extent in establishing and maintaining a 

 permanent and profitable lumber imlustry 

 in our Province; and third, so to handle this 

 matter as to make forest conservation not a 

 remote, but a nearer and more probable 

 thing upon all timber limits. ' 



He felt that this was a conservation 

 measure, and he ^\^shed to say that he 

 had not applied by wholesale plans 

 framed for some other country, but 

 had worked out a Bill drafted for 

 British Columbia conditions. He con- 

 tinued : 



' The Royalty Bill comprises these four 

 things: It fixes the royalty increase for 

 1915, and establishes a level of lumber prices 

 on which future increases will be ba^ed. It 

 provides seven five-year periods for royalty 

 adjustment; and it provides that for each 

 of these periods a given percentage of the 

 price increment for lumber shall be added 

 to the royalty. This percentage is twenty- 

 five per cent, for the first five years, and 

 rises gradually to forty per cent for the 

 last five-years period. The fourth of the 

 accomplishments of the Royalty Bill is to 

 re-adjust the rentals between the coast and 

 the interior, and fix them for the whole 

 period of the Act. ' 



* First, the royalty increase for which the 

 bill provides takes effect on January 1, 

 1915. The bill provides that these in- 



Hon. W. R. Ross, Minister of Lands for 

 British Columbia. 



creases shall be, for coast lumber, from 

 the present royalty of fifty cents to seventy- 

 five cents, an increase of fifty per cent. This 

 increase, however, is not applied arbitrarily, 

 but is the result of raising the royalty on 

 different classes of logs in a proportion 

 which puts the highest increase on the best 

 logs, and no increase at all on logs of such 

 low value that the increase would mean that 

 they would be left lying in the woods. . . . 

 'The royalty increase in 1915 provides 

 that in the interior royalty shall be increa.s- 

 ed by the use of the B. C. scale instead of 

 the Doyle. That means an increase of pro- 

 bably forty-five per cent in royalty to the 

 Government, and as far as I and my ad- 

 visors can figure it out is an equitable ad- 

 justment of royalty between the coast and 

 the interior. In the central and northern in- 

 terior, regions of great prospective timber 

 ilevelopment, the Government has imposed 

 in the Royalty Bill a royalty charge of sixty- 

 five cents per thousand board measure. This 

 again, in my best judgment, fairly repre- 

 sents the relative conditions as to lumber 



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