pulp for its paper; and the “World” is 
only one of 456 Sunday papers in the 
United States. Last year the United 
States Census Bureau issued a bulletin, 
in which it is stated that newspapers 
and periodicals in the United States 
used up in one year the timber from 
over 1,000,000 acres. “Every working 
day in the year the forests yielded 
40 
approximately 1,765,000 feet of timber 
to be transformed into newspapers and 
magazines for the people of the United 
States.” Perhaps some of these facts 
and figures may help us to understand 
what the American official authorities 
mean when they assert that a terrible 
timber famine is already imminent and 
near. 
CAN CANADA HELP? 
To casual or uninstructed observers 
it may seem at first sight that the 
United States could possibly evade the 
danger by doing what some people here 
expect New Zealand to do when the 
crisis comes—pass the burden along for 
someone else to bear. But I repeat 
that the time is rapidly approaching 
when neither New Zealand nor England 
nor the United States will be able to 
depend upon any other country’s timber 
supply, because every country will want 
all the timber it can grow or save for 
itself. In America there was some 
years ago a general impression that 
when their own forests gave out the 
people of the United States could 
safely look to Canada; and this notion 
has, I observe, taken root and flourished 
even in New Zealand. While the Timber 
Commission was sitting in Auckland, 
it was confidently asserted by a witness 
who ought to have known better that 
“there was enough milling timber in 
British Columbia to supply the whole 
world for a hundred years.” I was glad 
to see this statement promptly contra- 
dicted by one of our leading timber 
millers, who quoted the following in- 
teresting passage from an article on the 
prospects of the Canadian timber supply, 
written by a member of the faculty of 
Forestry in the University of Toronto: 
“For years we have been talking about 
Canada’s ‘inexhaustible timber resources,’ 
without knowing whether the statement 
was true or false. During the last ten 
years, though, enough information has 
been obtained to show that the amount 
of our standing timber of commercial 
Sizes is very much less than we fondly 
imagined it was. The accessible saw-log 
timber is estimated by Dr. Fernow at 
six hundred billion feet board measure— 
enough to supply the United States for 
15 years.” Now, Dr. Fernow is one otf 
the most eminent authorities on forestry 
in America, and if he tells us that Canada 
has no more than enough timber to 
supply the demands of the United States 
for 15 years, we may surrender at once 
all our vague notions about “inexhaust- 
ible supplies’ and our vain hope of 
being able to get all the timber we want 
from Canada. As a matter of fact, 
Canada has taken the alarm already, 
and is now contemplating legislation to 
check the destruction of her forests and 
the unrestricted export of timber to 
supply the needs of her American neigh- 
bours. And this is the attitude already 
assumed by practically every other 
country in the world, in view of the 
constantly increasing demand upon its 
stock of indigenous trees. 
THE COMING CRISIS. 
So far as we in New Zealand are con- 
cerned, we must therefore look forward 
to the necessity for facing the coming 
timber famine with our own strength 
alone, And what such a famine might 
really mean to us all I have endeavoured 
already to indicate. Perhaps the most 
instructive commentary that I can sup- 
ply upon my arguments is contained 
in a statement recently published by 
one of the foremost authorities on 
timber in the world—Mr. Gifford Pin- 
chot, the Chief of the Forest Service 
of the United States. He asserts that 
“the United States has already crossed 
the verge of a timber famine so severe 
that its blighting effects will be felt 
