200 EFFECT OF WAR ON TIMBER SUPPLIES 



suaded to recover them. Once the initial difficulty of 

 introduction and recovery of these props is surmounted 

 the managers are unUkely to go back to the wood prop, 

 and the market for this article will be proportionately 

 lessened at a juncture when, with the advance in 

 British forestry, it is most important that it should 

 be maintained. An experienced colliery proprietor 

 said to me the other day : " The shifts we were put 

 to after the outbreak of war to keep things going 

 resulted in all sorts of expedients being devised, and 

 some of these may have come to stay." The iron 

 pit prop, for instance ! 



(2) The Forestry Problem. — Is it not time that a 

 decision should be arrived at as to the percentage of 

 the available plantable land in the country which 

 should be maintained under woods in the interests of 

 the community as a whole ? There are many keen 

 planting proprietors in the country. It is known — the 

 various Forestry Commissions, appointed at intervals 

 by the Government of the day, have dealt fully with 

 the subject — that there are several milUon acres of 

 plantable land which could be made to produce a 

 proportion of the materials now imported. Inci- 

 dentally the woods would also give rise to flourishing 

 industries, such as pulp mills, furniture and toy 

 factories, and the thousand and one manufactured 

 articles which we now import, affording employment 

 to a considerable population. 



The blue-books of the above-mentioned Forestry 

 Commissions have pointed out that town labour was 

 useless for planting and general forestry work, as the 

 townsman could not handle a spade or stand the hard 



