The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ANN INCORPORATED The Evening New, Morning News, Echo. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1897.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 259, 28 October 1897, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ANN INCORPORATED The Evening New, Morning News, Echo.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1897.

For tie cause ttiat lacks assistance, For the -wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

THE FORESTS OF NEW ZEALAND.

Adverse critics of the Financial Statement, eagerly seeking what they may condemn appear to have found nothing much worse to say of it than that it contains a great deal of irrelevant matter. It is rare indeed that any Budget lays itself open to a milder indictment. In the present case, though the charge is not altogether without foundation, it has been grossly exaggerated, and the facts giving rise to it quite misunderstood. If Mr Setldon made extended reference to matters which had hitherto been considered outside the scope of the Statement, or at most had merely been touched on, we understand he did so with the object of bringing them into greater prominence than they could otherwise attain. The inclusion of a subject in the Statement gives to it a certain priority in the consideration of the House, for it is an acknowledgment of the importance which the Government attach to it. Members of the Opposition who do not attach the same significance to the matter would naturally regard such excursions from the beaten tracks of the Statement as mere 'padding.'

There is one subject discussed in the Budget, however, which though perhaps not strictly germane to the original purport of such a document will, even by Oppositionists, be admitted to be quite worthy the attention Mr Seddcn bestowed on it. We refer to the question of the conservation of our forests. The Premier deplored the irreparable loss the colony has sustained through the burning of valuable standing timber either by mistake or wilfully in the progress of settlement. He went on to say that if the denudation of our forest areas were allowed to go on at the rate it has gone on in the past, in a few years it would be absolutely necessary for us to import timber; and in conclusion urged that measures should at once be taken to reserve large areas of forest for the State, that certain conditions should attach to the sale oi' bush land, in order to prevent the absolute waste of the timber, and that some more systematic method of tree planting should be adopted.

The facts as stated by the Premier are pretty generally known to most of us, and this is not the first time by any means that public attention has been called to the possibility of a tini^ ber famine in New Zealand. But the people in the towns are utterly indifferent ' to the matter; the bushman regards the bush as useless except for the large trees it contains, and thinks little of sacrificing acres of the younger forest so that he can get more easily at the veteran kauris; while the settlers with a few rare exceptions think only of the forest trees as cumberers of the ground the sooner swept away by axe or fire the better so as to make room for the grass.

It is easy enough to understand that the settlers should hold this view when one considers all the circumstances 'of settlement. These people in numberless eases have had to hew out for themselves homes in the forest, and their one object for years and years Avas to increase the circumfer-' enee of their holding and win more ground for their flocks and herds. The forest was really their enemy which the}' had to set themselves to conquer, and as their most strenuous endeavours produced but comparatively small results it never occurred to them that the complete denudation of the land was a thing1 within measurable distance. Even if it had they would doubtless, from mere habit of thought, have conceived such a consummation as one to be looked forward to.

In the case of a very great deal of the bush lands of the colony it was of course inevitable that much valuable timber should be destroyed.. The ground had to be cleared if it was to bear cattle and sheep, and, in the early days, and in some instances even to-day, to utilise the timber was and is impossible. But on the other hand there are large areas of bush land, in the North especially, which have been foolishly destroyed for the purposes of settlement and most wantonly destroyed for no purpose whatever. In scores of places over New Zealand denuded areas are to be met with on which the poor settler has spent no end of labour merely to get rid of the most valuable crop the soD can ever produce. These places grew magnificent timber which was ruthlessly, sacrificed; now they throw.the scantiest pasturag-e and do not pay interest on the cost of clearing. Even as feeding grounds for the settler, which is probably the only point of view from which he regards them, they were more valuable when clothed with timber than they are now; for every experienced settler in such districts knows that the cattle often thrive better and grow fatter on the plants and foliage they get in the bush than on the grass planted in the paddocks.

The damage done by the thoughtless or ignorant settler in the course of his farming operations which can be partly excused is only a fraction of the wanton injury clone every year to our forests. Large areas are destroyed by the carelessness of the bushman. the gumdigger deliberately sets fire to the scrub for the sake of finding a few pounds of gum, without troubling his head how far the conflagration spreads; and many individuals out of pure destructiveness throw a matel into the dry undergrowth in order that they may have a pyrotechnical exhibition. Through all these agencies these beautiful islands are being deprived of what is not only a great source of wealth but a priceless adornment, and 3 ret little or nothing is being done to avert this calamity. The fact of our indifference awakens surprise in visitors from other countries where the value of timber resources .is better understood than here. Mr Perrin, Conservator of State Forests in Victoria, whose report on the conservation of New Zealand for-

ests was laid on the table of the House yesterday, does not conceal his astonishment at our mismanagement, and points out the terrible mistake we are making. It is to be hoped that what he has'to say on the conserving of our present forests will be laid to heart, not merely in view of our own future requirements, but with the object of developing an export trade in many of our timbers which at present are allowed to go to waste. A Forestry Department, as he suggests, could if properly administered do an immense deal of good in the way of preserving our forest reserves and establishing new plantations to take the place of the old supply when exhausted, and the Government should make much more extensive provision for setting aside larger areas of forest to be the property of the State. On the 31st of .March last the colony had 1,172,750 acres of forest reserve, but the additions which have been made of late years have not been very extensive. Last year only 11,368 acres were reserved. In the way of the planting something is still being done, but it amounts to little. In the Auckland district the new plantations comprised only some fifteen acres *>n the Ivaipara Plains, another fifteen acres at Tarukenga, and six acres at Mamaku. In Otag-o and Southland, tlie work has certainly been more vigorously carried on, some 11,000 acres being partly planted or made ready for planting last year. But to keep pace even with the normal consumption of our timber the plantations of the future will have to be much more extensive and more sytematically managed.