$60.00 a month. Cheaply-paid forest guards usually represent un- 
enthusiastic service. They are available for action usually only when 
fires have secured headway. Neither is it their hourly duty to look 
after fire prevention and public education, such as applies to a truly 
efficient ranger working under an up-to-date system. Adequate wages 
and alert inspection always recoup the public treasury well during a 
season of average fire danger. One might hazard a guess, without 
being accused of exaggeration, that for every dollar withheld from the 
forest protection service, short of a really adequate amount, the people 
of New Brunswick are losing many hundred per cent per annum in 
forest fire damage. 
Howa better . The proposed reorganization of the fire guarding scheme 
System canbe involves no net outlay on the. part of either Govern- 
paid for. ment or licensees, and would quickly put an end to a 
destructive agency that is penalizing the people of the province. 
The Canadian Forestry Association leaves to the judgment of the 
Government and its staff of foresters the detailed plan upon which a 
reorganization could be based. 
It may be that the Government will consider the taxing of licensed 
lands at a half-cent an acre, somewhat similar to the method of Ontario, 
where the tax is double that amount, or of British Columbia where the 
fire tax is one-and-a-half cents an acre, the British Columbia Govern-. 
ment contributing dollar for dollar. This would give the province 
$40,000 which with the $60,000 now spent on scaling, fire protection 
and administration of fish and game laws would make an annual fund 
ot ee sufficient to construct a forest service second to none in 
anada. 
The mere heaping up of a fund of $100,000 would not in itself 
correct the inadequacies of the present forest protective work. From 
the Parliament Buildings at Fredericton, out to the most distant ranger 
in the field, there must be a plan of co-ordination and co-operation. 
This pre-supposes an efficient head-office staff, directed by the Chief 
of the Forestry Division. To this officer should be delegated control of 
practically all the public forest administration, the appointment of a 
sufficient number of inspectors to get good service from the field em- 
ployees, the allocation of rangers and the enforcement of discipline. 
New Brunswick’s Lhe appointment of a Chief Forester, with power and 
problemshave sufficient money to reorganize the protective service, 
thi sp would in itself relieve the government and the people 
POEM EEE: of the need for protracted debate and investigation. 
Methods of fire protection have become in a general way standardized 
the world over. Other parts of Canada have built uv forest guarding 
systems that completely outstrip in actual results the methods that 
preceded them. New Brunswick offers few special difficulties that have 
not been already surmounted in Quebec and British Columbia and in 
many of the states of the American Union. y 
Under skilled direction, a reorganized forest department would bring 
into effect the system of issuing ‘‘permits’’ for all settlers’ land-clearing 
fires. It would introduce modern aids such as telephone lines, lookout 
towers, the cutting of trails and roads and other facilities for quick * 
8 
