KPLOITABIMTT FOB THE STATE. 51 



SECTION III. 



EXPLOITABILITY FOE THE STATE. 



The State is the highest form of expression of human society. 

 A great State must be looked upon as imperishable like society itself 

 taken universally. Having only a moral existence, it has no aptitude 

 for speculation. 



Imperishable or, to say the least, lasting for an indefinite period 

 of time, the State is in a position to rear high forests and look for- 

 ward with certainty to the enjoyment of the produce thereof. It 

 possesses or can possess that indispensabln esprit de suite, which is the 

 sole guarantee for the attainment of results that can only be com- 

 pleted step by step in one or two centuries. For it is reserved the 

 enjoyment of the highest forms of advantage that can be derived 

 from the possession of forest property — a large income expanding of 

 itself with time and the increasing scarcity of builders' and artificers* 

 timber ; easy treatment with assured results through the agency of 

 a great Department ; development of the general wealth of the coun- 

 try by means of raw products employed in every kind of industry ; 

 turning to the best account unfertile wastes ; protection of steep 

 slopes ; favourable modification of climatic influences ; natural orna- 

 ment for the country. Howsoever we regard the forests that are re- 

 quired to satisfy the wants of the country, we see in their possession 

 nothing but advantages accruing to the State - 



Wanting in true industrial activity, the State cannot speculate 

 with its forests ; any such enterprises undertaken by it can meet 

 with only a small measure of success. It is said that for the same 

 reason it is a bad producer. This is true if we take only the ordi- 

 nary forms of production, for which labour is a necessary condition. 

 But it is not so in the case of wood. What a forest wants above 

 everything else is protection and conservation. The amount of la- 

 bour required is almost limited to regulating the felling of the pro- 

 duce. For a forest to be well administered the production and 

 development of the stock must be obtained and controlled according 

 to our wants as the direct result of the exploitations themselves. 

 Thus the State, for the very reason that it is unfit for commercial 

 undertakings, for agriculture and the manufactures, but is neverthe- 

 less all powerful and eifective for protection, the State, we say, is 

 an excellent owner of forest property. For a standing proof of this 



