Title: Canadian forest industries January-June 1913
Identifier: canadianforjanjun1913donm (find matches)
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Lumbering; Forests and forestry; Forest products; Wood-pulp industry; Wood-using industries
Publisher: Don Mills, Ont. : Southam Business Publications
Contributing Library: Fisher - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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CANADA LUMBERMAN AND WOODWORKER 41 ner. Another not less immoral feature in the handling of the timber limits has been the practice of allowing pseudo-settlers to locate on portions of the limits, and thereby curtail the timber of the licensee. Even so, the license being only an annual one, there would appear lit- tle hardship in imposing these conditions; but there was introduced a worse feature, which practically forced the government to renew licenses as a matter of fairness, and thereby curtail morally its owner- ship rights. After 1867 the limits were placed on the market at auc- tions, and the so-called "bonus" paid by the highest bidder represent- ed, as nearly as could be ascertained by cruising, the difference be- tween timber dues and actual stumpage value, so that practically the owner of a one-year license to cut timber had paid full stumpage value for all the timber on the limit, which it would take years to remove, and thereby had a moral claim on the government to leave him undis- turbed in possession, to renew his license. "This would still have been a condition with which the govern- ment could have deal fairly, because the amount of the bonus paid was known, and could have been taken into consideration if any change of conditions had been contemplated. But the third and worst feature is still to be related. It became not only the practice to renew the annual license, but also to permit transfer of licenses to others. In this way timber limits became quasi private property and objects of speculation. Banks advanced money on the limits to the lease- holder for the bonus 'or otherwise, as if they were his property, and not the State's; and not licenses, but limits, were handled and changed hands in the market as if they were property, at prices paid by the pur- chaser, which would fairly represent full stumpage value. "In this way the hands of the government were tied by the equity which the license holders and banks had acquired in its property. The licensees claim, so to speak, property rights in limits which actually they had acquired only a right to cut for one year. It would take an unusually strong Minister of Crown Lands who could recover in an equitable manner possession of the State's property with a view to in- troducing a conservative management. "These worst conditions refer to licenses issued in Ontario from 1867, when the bonus was introduced, to 1904. The licenses issued before that time, still held sometimes by original lessees, are at least minus the "wages of sin" represented in the bonus, and it should be easier to adjust them and remove the claimed ownership to the second and third growth. Since 1904 the bonus bid is made not as formerly in a lump sum, but by the M. feet, in addition to the ordinary dues, the timber to be removed within a given time—not much of an im- provement on older methods. "The government has lost its power to regulate the proper use of its property, except on the unlicensed lands and forest reservations. This condition of things, which refers more particularly to Ontario, is repeated in somewhat different detail in other provinces. "In British Columbia, where the limits have been handed over to speculators mostly without a bonus payment for 21-year licenses, lately the licenses have been made perpetual and the stumpage dues fixed at 50 cents, under the idea that owners will therein find an in- ducement for conservative use—a perfectly hopeless expectation and a perfectly unfair deal for the people. This year, however, a vigorous attempt has been made to organize a strong forestry department, which may be able to work out a scheme by which the damage may be undone. "The Crown Lands of the Dominion, located in the new middle provinces and unorganized territories, are in a more hopeful condition as regards the possibility of applying management, for they are mostly not yet under license and the Forestry Branch has really possession of them. "There is, however, a move on foot to hand over the public lands to the provinces in which they are situated. Indeed, within a few weeks it was decided to transfer the so-called railway belt to the pro- vince of British Columbia. The same reasons which are against handing the National Forests over to the States are valid against such transfer to the provinces. The Federal government in both cases can better afford financially the difficult task of starting a forest man- agement, while either States or Provinces would surely resort to the policy of exploitation. "There is still to be added to these inherited and natural ones the third difficulty, which hampers the speedier progress in forest reforms wherever they have been begun. It is baneful influence of personal politics, the blight from which all public business suffers, wherever there is a lack of a standard for the appointment of civil servants. "The influence of the Civil Service Commission does not reach the so-called "outside service," the field force, which is appointed, as a rule, for political reasons, or is at least under political influence. The U. S. Forest Service has been lucky in having from the start been able to avoid this influence, and to divorce appointments, at least to a large extent, from political considerations. The Forestry Branch of the Dominion has had to steer through political waters, and while it has been allowed to employ technical men without reference to their politics, the politics of other appointees rather than their fitness had to be considered, with the inevitable result of leading to inefficiency rather than to efficiency. "So far, technically educated Canadian foresters have been few, and, with the sudden development of the British Columbia Forestry Branch, the market is indeed for the time undersupplied. • With the increase in the number of professional foresters, however, it is to be anticipated that reform in organizing the forest service will grow apace, and that Ministers of Crown Lands will be forced by public opinion to divorce technical administration from political influence. "Only a radical change in attitude, a realization that forest con- servation is a present necessity, and that existing methods are destruc- tive of the future, will bring forward the needed reform."
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