PROSPECTS OF EMPLOYMENT 109 



development in the social progress and the ameliora- 

 tion of the conditions of life of their peoples is by 

 the conversion and manufacture of their raw pro- 

 ducts, before export, within the country itself. By 

 this means plenty of assured employment is pro- 

 vided for their own people, the money expended 

 on the conversion and manufacture goes into the 

 pockets of their own people, and is put there'by 

 the foreigner who has to purchase these imports. 

 This applies to timber imports as much as to any- 

 thing el^se. The export of unmanufactured or semi- 

 manufactured timber, which was a prevaihng feature 

 of the exports from foreign countries during the 

 earUer portions of the last half of the nineteenth 

 century, is doomed. 



Further, as long as we are totally dependent on 

 imports of timber, we have no control over prices. 

 We are at the mercy of those countries who do 

 possess forests. The possession of a considerable 

 area of commercial forests of our own will alter 

 this aspect of the matter — a most serious one for 

 us, as the war has well exemplified. As long as 

 imports of timber were possible during the war 

 yeafs, we were at the mercy of the foreigner in 

 Europe, and had to pay him the price, the exorbitant 

 price he asked. In two years we threw away 

 £37,000,000 in this way. They had a monopoly. 



Lastly, the importance of commercial forestry as 

 it affects the home-life and requirements of the 

 people. Timber and its products play an important 

 and intimate part in the home-life of every, grade 

 in society. We may take two instances which 



