108 AFFORESTATIpN FOR THE NATION 



National Security. The stress of the past four 

 years, the grave doubts as to whether our island 

 supply of growing timber would prove sufficient to 

 see us through the war, has brought the importance 

 of the afforestation question home to the Govern- 

 ment. The public, perhaps fortunately, has had 

 little idea of the anxiety which, with the indefinite 

 dragging on of the war, this problem caused those 

 responsible for tha absolutely essential timber 

 supplies. National security — the necessity of having 

 within these islands at least a sufficient supply of 

 growing timber to carry us over an emergency 

 such as we have just been through — a three to four 

 years' supply of properly grown commercial timber. 



A second reason, and one very nearly as important 

 — to eliminate or mitigate our total dependence on 

 the foreigner for our timber supplies. This depend- 

 ence, as we have seen, has meant, and will mean for 

 some years to come, that considerable sums of money 

 annually leave this country for the purchase of 

 timber, and, worse still, manufactured timber — sums 

 of money which might have gone into the pockets 

 of our own people. And the sums of money thus 

 paid away will increase in the future with the 

 cutting out and utilisation of the world's virgin 

 forests. We shall have to buy and pay for planted 

 timber, material from woods such as we could grow 

 ourselves. The price of the material will be far 

 higher than we have been paying during the last 

 half century or so. 



All the nations have become alive to the fact that 

 the road to wealth and the surest way to successful 



