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One  of  the  recommendations  of  this  conference  was  that  the 
President  should  appoint  a permanent  national  conservation 
commission,  and  that  each  of  the  governors  should  also  ap- 
point a conservation  commission  for  local  purposes,  and  for 
the  purpose  of  cooperating  with  the  conservation  commissions 
of  the  other  States  and  with  the  National  Conservation  Com- 
mission. At  this  conference  my  conferees  were  Mr.  W.  O. 
Smith,  Mr.  Hosmer  and  Mr.  Gartley.  After  the  conference  I 
appointed  as  the  conservation  commission  for  Hawaii  these 
three  gentlemen  and,  in  addition,  Doctor  Jared  G.  Smith  and  Mr. 
W.  F.  Dillingham.  The  President  appointed  a national  com- 
mission of  a large  number  of  men,  which  has  been  subdivided 
into  committees  on  the  subjects  of  lands,  waters,  forests  and 
minerals,  and  this  national  commission  in  cooperation  with 
the  state  and  territorial  commissions  has  been  at  work  since 
then  making  an  inventory  of  the  natural  resources  of  the  entire 
country,  and  making  recommendations  as  to  what  should  be 
done  to  prevent  the  waste  of  these  resources  and  to  facilitate 
their  development.  They  reported  in  December  at  a joint 
conference  of  this  commission  and  the  governors.  The  meet- 
ing was  opened  by  addresses  by  President  Roosevelt  and  by 
President-elect  Taft. 
Since  then  another  step  has  been  taken.  The  President 
called  another  meeting,  which  has  been  held  during  the  last 
month,  of  representatives  of  the  great  countries  of  the  whole 
North  American  continent,  the  United  States,  Canada  and 
Mexico.  I believe  he  is  now  considering  the  calling  of  a still 
greater  conference,  a world  or  international  conference,  to  be 
held  in  the  near  future  at  which  shall  be  represented  all  civil- 
ized nations. 
Now,  I have  given  an  outline  of  this  movement.  It  is  a 
movement  that  is  growing;  it  is  a movement  that  is  already 
holding  the  attention  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  as 
scarcely  anything  else  is.  The  magazines  and  the  papers  are 
full  of  it.  It  is  something  that  we  here  in  Hawaii  may 
take  home  to  ourselves.  The  problems  here  are  just  as  serious, 
although  on  a smaller  scale,  as  they  are  on  the  great  mainland. 
We  have  no  mineral  resources  here  to  speak  of,  and  so  do 
not  have  to  concern  ourselves  about  those  to  any  great  extent. 
Fortunately  our  natural  resources  are  of  a better  kind,  for 
when  mines  are  exhausted,  as  they  will  be  sooner  or  later,  they 
are  gone  forever ; but  other  resources,  such  as  those  of  the 
soil,  the  forests  and  the  waters  may  be  so  used  as  to  be 
developed  and  actually  improved.  Those  are  the  kind  that  we 
fortunately  possess. 
We  have  no  inland  water  ways  to  develop.  We  need  not 
trouble  ourselves  about  those,  which  present  so  important  and 
difficult  a problem  on  the  mainland.  Here  there  is  a group  of 
