THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED DAILY. NELSON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1881. FORESTRY.

Colonist, Volume XXV, Issue 2976, 6 October 1881, Page 3

THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED DAILY. NELSON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1881. FORESTRY.

Hajiy and various as were the projects of Sir Julius Vogel for what he beliered to be the interests of the Colony, there is hardly one, if indeed there is one, that has not been more or less pwrad in the execution. His vivid inragination conceived vtst designs, tadhi» practical good sense laid down Auditions and restrictions that, if fclbered to, would bare prevented totot of the abuses that have so largely , dtreloped. Whether bis failures must be imputed to a want of firmness and courage, or to his love of place and ; power matters littler'The end has weu the same. For each new scheme •"« enthusiasm enlisted many supporters, the most earnest of whom *ere, in variably doomed to be disp»ted by his facile submission to any *Dot of determined opponents! As "•surrendered the safeguards of his railway policy to provincial pressure, •o his proposals for the Conservation of Forests were cut down in obedience w the same power till they become a {J«e vain and worthless shadow, peren years have now passed in the we talk of a phantom department on M>e one hand, and on the other in the Bale of a vast proportion of the more Valuable and most accessible Crown wests, while elsewhere destruction ty fire and for clearing has gone on *ith as little check as though Government, Parliament, and country had S| Ter heard a worJ about the wanton Waste of vhe resources of the future, °rthe probable pernicious effect on climate. That time honored practice, jocking the stable door when the horse 18 stolen, is in high favor with New Zealand Ministries. All. have adjetted the necessity of dealing with He forest question, yet none has I «en any effectual step. during Jaet session papers were as Jjual presented to Parliament, and, thertao far as conservation is conc«oed the matter is permitted tc» «umber._ Iv^hq selected Mr: A. Lecoy °r what inquiriep were mad© as to bis Rnt«cedents and qualificationb, no one Jeetm to know. At any rate itj is imf»»»ibio to md with moderniQ c»r«

his paper oh "OForeati-in^Newr 25ea■>rd " without coming to the conclusion that he is destitute of the vrq-.v, *ite knowledge, and that nothing nractical will be done till he ia'super«eded by ioma thoroughly experienced and competent man. When he says, that:" the total area of Crown forestß in the Colony" is " about ten million acres," he leaves it to be inferred, obviously he thinks, that this enormous extent is. covered with timber of marketable quality. His figures are taken from the Surveyor-General's report, and bo far may be accepted as approximately correct, but i' he had asked for more detailed iaformation, he would have found that, by far the greater part of these forests consists of trees that at best can only be turned to account as firewood, and even of the remainder that the • entire valu« of the timber to be obtained will never pay for the railways by which it can be profitably transported to a place of sale. Important as it may be to stop the destruction of the small stunted trees which cloth© much of the hill country, lest; the rainfall should be lessened, . tbe streams dry up at one season and become racing torrents at another, and damage by' alternate flood; and drought result to tbe richer low-lying country; such forests can never be made to contribute anything to the revenue. Clearly the system of management practised on the Continent of EuTbpe' cannot be. applied, indeed even there with a comparatively dense population, no rational being would dream of applying it under similar circninstances. With rare exceptions the forests calculated to materially affect climate are of such i character or so situated as to be without commercial values To sell the whole of them may be unwise in every way. The price must necessarily be insignificant; the certainty is that the more energetic the purchaser the more surely will he clear tbe ground as quickly as possible, because in no other way can be look for a return. As to, these, indisputably tbe main part of the Crown forests, it is idle to

lay down rules for cutting, to talk about renovation, or to make elaborate calculations of expected income. Nothing can be done except to proclaim extensive reserves, a course that has begun, and that may be pursued widely without any appreciable sacrifice with considerable advantage. Where Mr Lecoy discovered, that "the market value of sawn timber at Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, and Invercargill is about 13a per 100 superficial feet," he keeps to himself. There are many saw-millera, who to use a common expression would like Tery much to" make him prove his words/ in the only satisfactory way— finding them regular customers "on those terms. However, taking this as a basis, and the average market value of all timber, round and sawn, including of course- fencing and firewood '• as 10a for a quantity equal in value to 100 superficial feet," he makes out that forests in private hands now give a grose annual return of two million pounds, lie estimates expenses at 75 per cent, so that a million and a-half must be spent s mainly in labor and haulage,—a palpable fiction ; and each of the 204 saw-mills must net for their owners on the average about £2500 a year. The circulation of such miserable rubbish is discreditable to a Government, indeed there would not teem to be any object in so doing were it not that Mr Lecoy lugs in the Property Tax, and tries to show that from his erroneous, data, thoie having timbered land should be compelled to pay. At the outlet this foolish creature assumes that New Zealand forests can be worked so as to produce " permanent revenue" for the owners, in the same way that he has! been told or hat perhaps read is the case on the Continent. He takes no account of the different habit of grdw.tb, or the vastly greater susceptibility to injury of our native trees, but blunders along as though everything were proved, that he and others of his kind only conjecture. r Assuming that the annual net re-, ceipts of the owners of five million acres of forest, paid to be in private hands should be £750,000, Mr Lecoy puts the capital value at tweuty-five million*, and the Property Tax at five pence per acre, oi £104166. JSow he arrives at this result by putting' the interest of invested capital at 3 per cent, on the ground that in Europe landed property will not produce more. This ignoring of all around him and drawing hia arguments from a totally different Btate of affairs ib in keeping with the rest of this precious paper. What saw-miller in New Zealand would or could afford to lay out his money at 3 per cent ? The thing is absurd, and even granting the rest of hia unwarrantable assumptions, taking the more reasonable though still insufficient, 5 per cent mean* a reduction of ten millions in the capital value. The fact seems to be, that there is a burning desire to increase the Property Tux Assessment, and those engaged in the timber trade are pointed out as easy victims. As for his proposal to charge those cutting timber in Crown forests 2s 2d per hundred superficial feet, and thereby realise an immediate and permanent income of £53,000 a year, the answer is quite certain—not a shilling would be received, because uot; a tree would be felled on aucb terms.- The present revenue of £3000 a year probably could be increased without wrong being done, but it is prepoftterbtiitb suppose thatVanything approaching Mr Lecoy's extravagant leitimate can, ever U realised. If I

papers like this are all the Govern-" n -it can aupplj; or procure on, are-fry, the sooner they cease to meddle with the question the better Jfor themselves and the country 7 Something more than the idle fancies of a Civil Servant is needed, arid til! it can bo obtained Mr Lscoy had better be put' to more useful work—in this he do»a not earn the value, of the stationery he consumes.