injuries that this country must incur 
through the destruction of the native 
bush must bear more heavily upon the 
next generation than on fhis, and even 
though the benefits of Afforestation oz 
Reforestation must be secured: by our 
sons and grandsons rather than by our- 
selves, I do not believe that there are 
many New Zealanders ready to ask 
that singularly sordid and futile ques- 
tion “what has Posterity done for us 
that we should undergo sacrifices and 
hardships for its sake?’ I prefer to 
believe that in this beautiful land, the 
vast majority of men and women feel as 
keenly as I do the responsibility en- 
tailed upon us all of leaving our natural 
43 
heritage no less beautiful and healthy, 
and fertile and productive; than we 
found it. To those who feel the truth of 
this, the case for Afforestation and Re- 
forestation needs no elaborate argu- 
ment to enforce it. And even those who 
pride themselves on taking a sternly 
practical view of life, and who refuse to 
prefer romantic sentiment to material 
gain may well consider if on such evid- 
ence as I have laid before them, the 
policy of afforestation is not urged upon 
them only by a sense of public duty, 
but by a sense of the necessity for that 
self-preservation which, as we are pro- 
verbially and justly told, is the first Law 
of Nature. 
The Brett Printing and Publishing Oo., Lid., Auckland. 
