87. Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture in what woodlands the Canadian lumbermen are now being employed; and what varieties of timber are now being cut out of season?
§ Mr. ACLANDThe Canadian Forestry Battalion are already at work in the New Forest, in Windsor Forest, and in Devon. They will shortly begin operations elsewhere in England and Scotland. The timbers now being felled are chiefly coniferous. It is not possible under present conditions to have regard to those considerations which under ordinary circumstances make it expedient to fell timber during the winter months only.
§ Mr. ACLANDThe officers of the Home-Grown Timber Committee.
Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTIs the cutting being confined to old wood past maturity or is young wood being cut?
§ Mr. ACLANDWe are cutting a good deal of wood for pit props.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMCannot we have some of these men in the Midlands?
§ Mr. ACLANDYes, if there are good enough and big enough forests.
§ Sir A. MARKHAMWe have plenty of them.
88. Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture on whose expert advice and under whose authority is timber now being cut out of season?
§ Mr. ACLANDThe timber is being felled by the authority of the Home-Grown Timber Committee, who have 2107 fully considered the reasons for and against the felling of timber during the summer months.
§ Mr. ACLANDThere are some experts on the Committee, and they are being advised by experts. We must have the timber—that is the point.
§ Mr. ACLANDThat is exactly the main point for which the Committee was set up, namely, to save freights from abroad.