SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
journals should be increased. The Canadian system of lecturing tours through 
the timber country is a good one, and might well be introduced into Australia. 
Books on forestry for children are also valuable aids. The older generations are, 
for the most part, so much in a groove that it will be difficult to impress the 
altered conditions on their minds. In the matter of fires, the hope lies in propa- 
ganda work with the rising generation. P 
The above, then, are the main points of a forest policy for the Commonwealth. 
It is obvious that this is merely a skeleton, and it will be necessary for the forest 
experts of the various States to supply the flesh to cover it and the blood to 
give it vitality. Only the man on the spot, possessed of a knowledge of the 
many different local conditions that affect the problem in each district of his 
State, is in a position to advise on the details of such a policy. ‘There is no 
doubt, however, that if all the States were to accept some definite foundation 
of a forest policy, the erection thereon of the edifice of sound forestry would be 
but a comparatively simple matter. The main obstacle, as has been mentioned 
already, is the difficulty of finance. The ever-pressing cry of an_ insistent 
Democracy for the expenditure of money on purely present and very local pro- 
blems must of necessity be heard before the voice of the forester. Forestry, while 
showing a sound business profit, only does so after what is regarded in these days 
as a considerable lapse of time. The “local member” is far more concerned with 
the repair of the village pump than the possibilities of his district 25 years 
hence. He is apt to retort, when the matter is pressed before his notice, with 
the question, “ What has posterity done for me?” Even in the old countries we 
see that such essential matters as naval defence have been starved of money. In 
France the outery for social reforms resulted in the army itself suffering through 
lack of funds. It is little wonder, therefore, that young nations sparsely popu- 
lated, and utterly dependent on Government development work for the opening 
up of the country for settlement, should, even when they admit the necessity 
of a forest policy, find it impossible to provide the necessary money to finance 
the scheme. 
It is doubtful whether any national work yields as sure a return as forestry, 
yet it is work in which the present generation, and the voter who governs the 
destiny of the country, sees no return to himself. Sir Alexander Peacock put the 
matter as succinctly as possible when addressing the delegates of the Inter-State 
Forest Conference in Adelaide in 1916. He said: ‘The trouble about forestry 
is that the trees have no votes.” It is true that certain States haye taken steps 
to provide funds for forestry. New South Wales has ear-marked, under her 
Forests Act, half the revenue derived from the forests. Victoria has made a 
permanent annual appropriation under her Act of 1918. Western Australia has 
created a fund into which three-fifths of the net revenue derived from royalties, 
leases, licences, and timber dues generally is paid, and which can only be expended 
for forestry work. ‘These are all steps in the right direction, which will doubtless 
result in much good work being started; but we have to look forward many years 
in forestry matters, and the time that concerns the foresters most is when the 
last big mill has closed down in Western Australia and in Tasmania, when the 
demand to open up and cut out the out-back forests in Victoria has been acceded 
to, and the period.is reached when there is nothing to look forward to but a 
long sequence of—from a revenue stand-point—blank years while the forests are 
being restored once more. The well-populated and more highly-developed States 
will probably be able to carry on by supplying funds from general revenue, but 
the less developed States will be unable or unwilling to face the burden, and the 
forest policy will he relegated to the background. It is this very serious proba- 
. bility that makes the problem of Australian forestry one which should receive 
the thought of all statesmen to-day. Some plan must be evolved which will 
meet the situation. If the Central Federal Authority were to adopt a forest 
policy, and assist those States which are so placed financially as to make forestry 
a difficult matter, a way might be found out of the difficulty. The forests of the 
Commonwealth are obviously, the heritage of the whole continent, and not of any 
particular State. The advance of money by the Federal Government to those 
State Governments which are unable to foot their own forest bills would seem to 
be sound policy. ‘The investment is a particularly safe one, for tle interest and 
profit on the undertaking are assured, while the security is excellent, being the 
growing forests themselves. 
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