The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1921 THE FORESTRY BILL

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 280, 24 November 1921, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1921 THE FORESTRY BILL

For the cause tfcc* lacks assisfaaoe, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in, (he distance, And the good that tee «» do.

Criticised on all sides, the Foreetry | Bill now being debated in the House I requires close attention from Parliament | as well as from the general public. Three weeks ago the Committee to which the Bill had been entrusted reported it with several amendments, and the IHII and the proposed modifications were thereupon subjected to some scathing criticism by the "Press;" the "Dominion, -, and the "Evening Post." We mention these journals particularly because no one is likely to attribute their views to any: political prejudice against the Massey Government—a charge to which the "New Zealand Times" and the "Auck- i land Star,' , which have also strongly condemned the Bill, might conceivably be held liable. The "Dominion' , stated that the Bill in the, form it had then taken would simply "perpetuate the conditions of land control in which hundreds of thousands of acres of productive land in the Dominion have been reduced to a condition in which they will produce nothing." The -'Evening Post" described the Bill as so mutilated and shorn of ite best features by the Committee that it was absolutely useless for its original purpose—the protection of native bush and the defence of the country against the worst evils of deforestation. The "Press" went even further in its condemnation of the Bill, declaring that if it is allowed to pass in its present fom\. "any hope that the Dominion is on the eve of a rational forestry policy may bo dismissed, and the Forest Service may as 1 well be dismanded.

One of the chief difficulties that the Forestry Department has to face is the conflict between the claims of settlement and the necessity for protecting the native bush and saving the country from the worst consequences of reckless deforestation. The Forestry Bill was supposed to keep these objects in view; but on the form in which it now stands before the House it exhibits all the worst evils of divided control. The "New Zealand Times," in an able analysis of the Bill, which it published yesterday, points out that the measure now provides that "the protection of the Forest Department over the State forests can be removed by Order in Council on the recommendation of the Minister of Lands." Now it ie hardly necessary to observe that the chief object of the Lands Department is to open up land for settlement, and it is principally because tho Lands Department hn3 concentrated on this policy, without any regard for its possibly disastrous effect?, that the country is now compelled to consider the whole question of national forestry so seriously. But as the Bill proposes to allow the Minister of Lands to override the decisions of the Forestry Department in regard to these vitally important questions, its adoption in its present form would be nothiag less than a national disaster. Apparently those in control of the Bill are more anxious to maintain the authority of the Lands Department than to secure the objects which the Bill was supposed to promote; and if such a provision is accepted it is quite certain that in any conflict of opinion .between the Minister of Lands and the Forestry Department the Minister would inevitably fret his own way. An even more ominoiA feature of the situation is the demand for increased representation of sawmillers on the Advisory Board. What is likely to happen to our forest reserves if they are to be left) to the tender mercies of a Minister of Lands acting largely on the advice of representatives of the sawmilling interests we can only invite our readers to imagine. But it is obvious that there is no protection for the native bush possible if the power to decide its i fate is not vested in the Forestry I Department.

But while on the one iiand the Bill,"as th 0 Committee has left it, aims at maintaining the authority of the Lands Department over our forest areas, on the other hand it apparently is intended to limit the powers of the Forestry Department to such an extent as to make it. virtually impotent just where it ought to be strong. It is proposed to strike out the clause which in the original Bill provided heavy penalties for tampering with the forest officials, and thus the difficulty of sheeting home offences against the law in this respect will l>e, at. the "Times'" hue pointed out, ereatlv increased. Another clause

to be dropped is the section of the original Bill providing that in case of forest fires the officers of the Forestry Department may compel all able-bodied men within five miles of the outbreak to assist in extinguishing the conflagration. Another clause which the Committee has dropped was intended to prevent

unlawful depasturing, cutting-, or clearing, and any form of sport dangerous to the forests themselves. The tendency of many of these changes is clearly in the direction we have indicated—to limit the powci-3 of the Forestry Department and the authority to be exercised by its officials, while at the same time upholding the authority of the Lands Department, and even permitting the Minister of Lands at his own discretion to override the decisions of the Forestry Department altogether. Fortunately it is a, favourable omen for the future that the strongest champions of the "Reform' , Administration in the Dominion have been loudest in their condemnation of this most disappointing and dangerous measure. .