A NATIONAL ASSET.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 176, 2 August 1910, Page 3

A NATIONAL ASSET.

The need of a complete systfem of .\ forestry in New Zealand was strongly emphasised by Mr G. M. Thomson in the course of his speech on the Budget. He believed, he said, that we are throwing away one of our national j assets in the way we deal with our timber. The Government should long ago have appointed "a proper expert forestry officer, and he said fhat without . any disparagement whatever to the efforts that are being made to plant this country at present or the people in charge of the planting operations, but he thought they ought to be extended to the native forests, which' at present are being destroyed without any reference to the future. The demand for timber was not falling off, and the day was not far distant when every stick of timber in -New Zealand must be valuable. The Hon. T. Mackenzie interjected that the destruction of timber was nothing like what it was; it had been greatly checked. Mr Thomson agreed, but for all that he thought they .should have what he called a proper forestry , officer—a man trained in the best school either in India or Germany, who ought to be employed for a considerable term of. years, so that our system of afforestation could be properly organised.