New Zealand Times. MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 1874.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4171, 3 August 1874, Page 2

New Zealand Times. MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 1874.

Perhaps the moat curious — we cannot say remarkable —speech delivered on the subject of the State Forests Bill on Friday night was that of Mr. T. B. Gillies. It cannot be said of him that he has not the capacity to grasp the idea embodied in the measure. It must be said of him, however, that he wilfully and deliberately shut his eyes to the plain objects of the Bill, and discussed it, not on its merits, but from a narrow and prejudiced point of view, which had not even the negative merit of Provincialism, and scarcely rose above the level of the ridiculous. The object of the Government, as he described it,, was simply to seize a portion of the timbered lands of the Provinces to make cash out of them merely to raise money by catting down timber. “Other parties,” however, he said, “ were equally interested with the General Government in raising revenue out of them and his idea of the way of “conserving” the forests was to make the best commercial use of them, by placing them in private hands. Another great source of the “ annoyance ” which the hon. member said he felt in endeavoring to speak on the subject was, that the measure would create another large department, into tho possession of which so much of the most valuable lands of the Colony would pass. No one knows better than the hon. member for Auckland City West, that the annoyance he expressed partook a good deal of the character of crocodile tears. No one knows better that the scheme embodied in the Bill has not been devised before interference with the management of the forests is necessary; that it has be»n framed in tho interests of Now Zealand as a whole; and that if Provincial institutions have been overlooked in the formation of the plan it developes for managing a portion of the timbered lands of the Colony, the fact is probably due iu some considerable degree to the indifference with which tho subject was received by the Superintendents who were consulted by circular on the subject by the Premier. He is perfectly well aware that the forests, have been left hitherto almost entirely to the Provincial authorities, and with what results he very well knows. The testimony on all hands on Friday night was that the Native timber was being dealt with in the most improvident way. Forests were disappearing, not merely in the neighborhood of saw-mills, but through natural decay caused by the improvements of tho settlers ; ■and by the careless use of fire, by which the woods have been ravished. He is also perfectly well aware that the practice of tho saw-mills is to use up first all the best available timber, leaving the refuse to be made marketable at some future period,; that the demand is so great that no care is taken to cut down timber only at the proper season ; and that green timber is sent to market and used in the construction of houses and for other purposes for which it is utterly unfit, to the serious loss hereafter of those who are compelled to use it. This state of matters must be brought to an end at some time or other ; and as full aged, or even marketable timber cannot be grown in a day, or in a decade, the sooner that beginning is made the better. To suppose that the sole object of the Government is to “ conserve” the forests by cutting down the timber and selling it as fast as possible, is a view of the subject neither ingenuous nor creditable to the hon. member who formed it. There is no su""estlon in any part of the Financial Statement, or in that of the Minister for Public Works, to justify such an assertion. The country is in no need of resorting to a course which is usually the last resort of a spendthrift possessor of an entailed estate—that of selling the timber upon it. The state of the revenue is exceedingly favorable. The credit of the country abroad is sound and good. The railways have begun to contribute to the Treasury ; and the effects of the policy of public works is seen in the unprecedented prosperity of the country. The public loans are bringing the country into a state so prosperous that there is no question of the ability of New Zealand to meet its financial engagements, without any falling of timber to defray those liabilities. Nor is there any question of “robbing the Provinces” tenable in the case. Tho Provinces are merely so many divisions of the Colony. Some are well timbered and others are not; some possess great mineral wealth and others do not; but neither timber nor gold can be regarded as the property only of tho Province in which it is found. It belongs to New Zealand—not to Nelson or Wellington. The legislation necessary on the subject must necessarily be of a Colonial and not of a Provincial character, just as the railway policy of the Government is, and the subject can be fairly and properly dealt with without importing tho Provincial element into it at all. On his idea of “ commercial conservation” we are unable to compliment the hon. member for Auckland City West. If it is possible to suppose him capable of a joke, we might believe that he put forward the notion of conserving tho forests by clearing them out of the way as fast as possible, and without making provision for tho wants of generations to come by the formation of now plantations, as a piece of exquisite humor. That tho real design of the Government is to cut down the timber to pay for the railways is an idea that could not possibly occur to an ingenuous mind. Mr. Gillies no more believes it than wo do. But it is on arguments so rotten as this that the opposition to tho immediate passage of tho Bill into law is based. That a great staff is to bo organised for the care of tho existing forests, and the preparation of new plantations, is equally baseless, and is as purely a fiction of imagination as tho calculations of His Honor the Superintendent of Wellington as to the enormous expenditure which must be incurred in the management of two millions of acres of forest land. Data exist on which the expenditure can be calculated . minutely ; and wo are not awaro that in any of his arrangements for the proper carrying out of tho

Government of New Zealand there has been any such extravagance on -the part of the Treasurer' as to justify either the one in supposing that “a groat department” is to be created, or the other in indulging romantic anticipations as to the enormous amounts which New Zealand will be called upon to pay under the Bill should it become law. The experience of Germany and France in the finance of forest management is open to the Premier. Something also may be learned from Victoria, in which State forests were established some years ago, and have since been managed by a Board at no great expense. Of course it can hardly be expected that experienced men can be got to take a special work of the kind in hand merely, as an hon. member expressed it, “ for the love of the thing.” Experience and skill must be had and must bo paid for, but the great bulk of the labor required will not be of a costly character; while one of the first results from the creation of the department will be the placing in the Treasury through the Forest Account of large sums of money which do not find their way there at present, and which those who favor “ conservation” after the fashion of selling the forests at once to private speculators would like to see still passing away, in increasing quantity, into private pockets.