1 
IV. 
CAN WE SAVE THE BUSH? 
T is difficult to give any idea of the 
enormous consumption of timber 
now indispensable for our indus- 
trial and commercial progress, and 
for the needs of civilised life. In America 
alone, in 1907, 40,000,000,000 feet of tim- 
ber were cut for various purposes. The 
railroads alone need 100,000,000 ties or 
sleepers a year, which means the cutting 
of one million acres of hardwood per year 
for this purpose alone. In 1906, at least 
three and a-half million telegraph poles 
were cut in America, three-fifths of them 
cedar—and the annual expenditure of 
timber in telegraph and telephone poles 
in this one country means the clearing of 
nearly 4,000,000 acres of land. In 1906 
again, America used 1,370,000 cords of 
bark for tanning, nearly 12,000,000 
shingles and 4,000,000 laths; and the tim- 
ber for use in the mines alone amounted 
to 165,000,000 cubie feet. For paper-pulp 
something like a million acres a year must 
be cut to keep the newspapers and maga- 
zines going. Even the lead pencils made 
in the United States consume over 
7,000,000 cubic feet of cedar a year, 
ph 
Ca 
and at the present rate the cedar 
supply will not last more than 12 
vears. And with the growth of 
population and the progress of settlement 
this demand must inevitably increase. 
Mr. A. W. Page tells us that unless some 
radical protective measures are/ taken, 
twenty years will see the end of the 
United States forests. And it is easy to 
imagine the consequences that will ensue 
to all the multifarious trades and inter- 
ests concerned in the use of timber long 
before the actual famine point is reached. 
“Some time before the forests disap- 
pear cross-ties, mine timbers and wood- 
building matrials will be prohibitive in 
cost. The price of hardwood has already 
risen from 25 to 65 per cent”, and in 
view of the fact that the demand for. 
wood is increasing in every country every 
year, Mr. Page regards the timber out- 
look in America as gloomy in the extreme. 
I have dwelt at some length upon the 
position of the United States because 
America originally possessed what  ap- 
peared only a few years ago to be inex- 
haustible supplies of timber. But the de- 
mand has increased with such appalling 
rapidity of late that in the opinion of the 
most competent authorities the end is 
already in sight. The weakness of all 
estimates as to the duration of the supply 
lies in the incalculable factor of “increas- 
ing demand”; and no one can predict how 
‘much the life limit of the existing stock 
may be curtailed by increased facilities 
for transportation, and increased speed 
in industrial processes, acting in conjunc- 
tion with the evergrowing demand upon 
a constantly decreasing supply. 
THE WORLD’S PROSPECTS. 
I do not intend at this stage to apply 
these general considerations to the case 
of New Zealand, but I wish to make it 
quite clear that the facts I have cited 
are not peculiar to America. J am aware 
that there are optimistic people in this 
country and elsewhere, who refuse to 
believe in a possible shortage of timber, 
who talk vaguely about an inexhaustible. 
supply, or who cherish the hope that 
even if we do go one using up our tim- 
ber, as recklessly and rapidly as we can, 
either Providence will intervene on our 
behalf or some genius will invent a sub- 
stitute for wood that will enable us to 
get along without the help of trees. 
But in so vitally important and so em- 
inently practical a matter as this, it is 
surely most unwise to base public policy 
on hazy speculations. The facts are as 
T have stated in America, and a similar 
condition of things prevails in various 
