—T 
AN AUSTRALIAN STUDY OF AMERICAN FORESTRY. 
Cuarts IV. 
FEDERAL OR STATE FORESTRY—WHICH ? 
American forestry is Federal: Australian forestry is State controlled. 
It is argued that forestry is a national, not a provincial function, and that 
State control tends to the subordination of the national interest to purely 
local considerations. Conservation of the timber supply and maintenance of 
stream flow are matters of nation-wide importance. Many of the problems to 
be faced are interstate in character. Forest fires are not limited by State 
boundaries. The water supply of one State may be affected seriously by forest 
destruction in an adjoining one. 
The most damning argument against. State control is the land history of 
the States themselves. 
Considerable lands were granted all the public land States, and, from 
beginning to end, their handling of them has been marked by carelessness, 
inefficiency, waste and “graft.” In connection with their disposition scandals 
of great and small proportions have been so frequent as to be commonplace. 
“Vast areas were donated by the States for roads that were 
never built; water fronts were given away without any considera- 
tion; tide and swamp lands were granted on promises that never 
materialised, and vast areas of the choicest timber lands sold for a 
song.” 
The American Union is ‘a coalition of forty-nine small States; the 
Australian Commonwealth is a federation of seven countries. 
In America, the State powers are limited; in Australia, the limitations 
are those of the federation. 
In America the Government is wholly national. State rights are insigni- 
ficant. 
Federal forestry is a natural development of the situation in America, 
as State forestry is a natural corollary to the present Australian form of 
Government. 
The mountainous configuration of the forest Jands of America and the 
inflammable nature of the forests are strong factors in influencing federal 
forestry development in America, in view of the interstate influences they exert 
on water flow and forest fires. 
CHAPTER V. 
LAW AND POLICY. 
Forestry is essentially a science of safeguarding the future consistently 
with the present. It is “paternalism.” 
And it is “undemocratic” in that it is opposed to the doctrine of non- 
interference with private rights ; which may explain its flourishing development 
in Germany. 
Yet, even in the American Democracy, the trend of the Federal Govern- 
ment of late years has been paternalistic—even socialistic. 
Two courts have ruled recently that owners of timberlands may be 
