TIMBER IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 203 



till well over a year of the war had elapsed. The 

 Home Timber Committee was not appointed till Decem- 

 ber 1915. We had by then realised that the shortage 

 of freight ships combined with the activities of German 

 submarines had brought ^bout a timber crisis — the 

 beginnings of a timber famine. To meet the immediate 

 needs of the moment — the urgent requirements of the 

 War Office and Admiralty — ^we had to turn to such 

 home woods as existed and make use of the material, 

 poor in quality though much of it was, which they 

 could furnish. 



A comparison of the imports of timber materials, 

 and prices paid for them, during 1915 with those of 

 1913 (the last full year before the war) is of some 

 importance in this connection, for it exhibits both the 

 falling off in supplies and the great increase in prices. 

 In some cases — to wit pitwood — the extraordinary and 

 serious position is disclosed of a larger sum being paid 

 in 1915 for a smaller almount of material (£4,700,000, 

 for 2,100,000 loads) than was paid in 1913 for a larger 

 amount of material (£4,400,000 for 3,400,000 loads). 

 Had the sum of money thrown away in this manner 

 during 1915 been spent on afforestation twenty-five 

 to thirty years ago we could have hoped to have had 

 much of this material standing in woods in this country 

 at the outbreak of the war. Surely this one instance 

 alone should prove sufficient to awaken the nation to 

 the very great economic importance of the afforestation 

 question. 



If we take the six groups into which forestry 

 materials are classified in the Board of Trade Re- 

 turns we obtain the following compaiison of amounts 



