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pulp for its paper: and the "World" is
only for one of 456 Sunday papers in the
United States. Last year the United
States Census Bureau issued a bulletin,
in which it is stated that newspapers
and periodicals in the United States
used up in one year the timfer from
over 1,000,000 acres. "Every working
day in the year the forests yielded
approximately 1,765,000 feet of timber
to be transformed into newspapers and
magazines for the people of the the United
States." Perhaps some of these facts
and figures may help us understand
what the American official authorities
mean when they assert that a terrible
timber famine is already imminent and
near.

CAN CANADA HELP?
To casual or uninstructed observers
it may seem at first sight that the
United States could possibly evade the
danger by doing what some people here
expect New Zealand to do when the
crisis comes --- pass the burden along for
someone else to bear. But I repeat
the the time is rapidly approaching
when neither New Zealand nor England
nor the United States will be able to
depend upon any other country's timber
supply, because every country will want
all the timber it can grow or save for
itself. In America there was some
years ago a general impression that
when their own forests gave out the
people of the United States could
safely look to Canada; and this notion
has, I observe, taken root and flourished
even in New Zealand. While the Timber
Commision was sitting in Auckland,
it was confidently asserted by a witness
who ought to have known better that
"there was enough milling timber in
British Columbia to supply the whole
world for a hundred years." I was glad
to see this statement promptly contra-
dicted by one of our leading timber
millers, who quoted the following in-
teresting passage from an article on the
prospects of the Canadian timber supply,
written by a member of the faculty of

Forestry in the University of Toronto:
"For years we have been talking about
Canada's 'inexhaustible timber resources,'
without knowing whether the statement
was true or false. During the last ten
years, though, enough information has
been obtained to show that the amount
of our standing timber of commercial
sizes is very much less than we fondly
imagined it was. The accessible saw-log
timber is estimated by Dr. Fernow at
six hundred billion feet board measure-
enough to supply the United States for
15 years." Now, Dr. Fernow is one of
the most eminent authorities on forestry
in America, and if he tells us that Canada
has no more than enough timber to
supply the demands of the United States
for 15 years, we may surrender at once
all our vague notions about "inexhaust-
ible supplies" and our vain hope of
being able to get all the the timber we want
from Canada. As a matter of fact,
Canada has taken the alarm already,
and is now contemplating legislation to
check the destructuion of her forests and
the unrestricted export of timber to
supply the needs of her American neigh-
bours. And this is the attitude already
assumed by practically every other
country in the world, in view of the
constantly increasing demand upon its
stock of indigenous trees.
THE COMING CRISIS
So far as we in New Zealand are con-
cerned, we must therefore look forward
to the necessity for facing the coming
timber famine with our own strength
alone. And what such a famine might
really mean to us all I have endervoured
already to indicate. Perhaps the most
instructive commentary that I can sup-
ply upon my arguments is contained
in a statement recently published by
one of the foremost authorities on
timber in the world- Mr. Gifford Pin-
chot, the Chief of the Forest Service
of the United States. He asserts that
"the United States has already crossed
the verge of a timber famine so severe
that its blighting effects will be felt