Lords Sitting of 29 July 1943

Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LAW REFORM (FRUSTRATED CONTRACTS) BILL, [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
RESTRICTION OF RIBBON DEVELOPMENT (TEMPORARY DEVELOPMENT) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
FOREIGN SERVICE BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
EMERGENCY POWERS (ISLE OF MAN DEFENCE) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

PENSIONS APPEAL TRIBUNALS BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Constitution, jurisdiction and procedure of pensions appeal tribunals]:
LORD HEMINGFORD: There is only one observation I wish to make with reference to Clause 6. The Lord Chancellor has power to make rules with regard to procedure, and I am sure it is not necessary for me to do more than just call his attention to the particular point I have in mind. The question of representation before these tribunals arises. I do not think anyone would raise any objection to the
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appellants being represented by somebody, not necessarily a professional man. For instance, the representatives of the British Legion do a great deal of very good work in that way. I hope the Lord Chancellor may be able to say that the rules will be so drafted as to avoid what happened as a result of the Traffic Act. There may grow up a small body of people, composed partly of former lawyers' clerks, who will tend to exploit these appellants by offering to undertake cases for them and to undertake it on percentage terms or something of that kind. I am only anxious that, if possible, the rules with regard to representation should ensure, as far as may be, that the appellant should be represented by somebody who can be regarded as having a good status.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON): I am obliged to my noble friend for mentioning this point. As he said said, the duty will fall upon me under Section 6 to make rules of procedure for these tribunals. My recollection is, though I am speaking only from recollection, that the rules that were made in similar circumstances in connexion with the pensions appeal tribunals in the last war did make the sort of provision which my noble friend indicates—that is to say, that a body like the British Legion might in proper cases put forward for one of its members the case which he wished to make. As I say, I am speaking from recollection, but I will certainly look into this matter and at the same time will endeavour to guard against exploitation in directions which might be unsuitable.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.

ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

POST-WAR FORESTRY POLICY.
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND rose to call attention to the Report by H.M. Forestry Commissioners on Post-war Forestry Policy (Cmd. 6447) and the recommendations therein; to ask His Majesty's Government for a declaration of policy on these matters; and to move

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for Papers. The noble Duke (who spoke from the Front Opposition Bench) said: My Lords, I am taking the same opportunity as a Privy Councillor, as has been taken by Lord Brabazon and Lord Beaverbrook, of speaking from this side of the House, chiefly because, as Lord Brabazon remarked, of the convenience from the point of view of one's notes, and secondly, because I can face the Government Front Bench and can see from the expression of members on that Front Bench how they like my remarks.
Your Lordships may remember that in October last I initiated a debate in this House on forestry matters, and on that occasion I made it very clear that I favoured a separate Forestry Commission for Scotland under the Secretary of State for Scotland. I was, at that time, supported I think by a considerable body of opinion in your Lordships' House. I was very glad to see on July 26 in The Times newspaper, a very sensible letter from my noble friend Lord Rosebery on the subject. He, I am sorry to say, is not able to be here to-day owing to his urgent duties as Regional Commissioner for Scotland. At that time he supported my view and from his letter, to which I have just referred, I conclude that he still supports my view, given in the original debate, but making it clear that the Forestry Commission for Scotland should be an independent body or department under the Secretary of State for Scotland and not in any way under the Department or Ministry of Agriculture. I fully agree with my noble friend Lord Rosebery that agriculture and forestry must be kept separate and under different chiefs. There I think we are all agreed.
I have not in any way altered my view that there should be a separate Forestry Commission for Scotland under the Secretary of State for Scotland, and there is a strong feeling throughout Scotland both in the Press and among the public that this should be done. I have had numerous discussions from time to time with members of the Forestry Commission and members of the Scottish Forestry Societies, and I still feel that the most satisfactory plan would be a separate Forestry Commission both for Scotland, and for England and Wales. For instance, let me quote for a moment the situation with regard to the Crown Lands
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Commission. As regards Scotland it is under the Secretary of State for Scotland and as regards England under the Minister of Agriculture. Exactly the same situation might be brought about by treating forestry in the same way as Crown lands. I do, however, realize that if the Government decide—and I hope they will decide soon—after weighing carefully all the pros and cons of the case, to have a single Forestry Commission for Scotland, England and Wales, then we who are in favour of separate Commissions are being met to a certain extent by the proposals in the Report of the Forestry Commission, which I presume many of your Lordships have read.
On page 89, in paragraph 544 of the Report, they say that a purely Scottish Committee will be appointed inside the Commission to deal with Scottish questions. The actual words are:
"So far as the increased scale of operations is concerned, we think a further devolution of powers from the headquarters of the Commission will be necessary, and that the basis of devolution should undoubtedly be the maximum efficiency of the whole undertaking. We believe that this best can be achieved by the following steps:

(1)Committees of Commissioners to be constituted for England and Wales, and for Scotland, respectively, to deal with executive business. It may be desirable for the Commission to co-opt to these Committees, either permanently, or from time to time for special purposes, two additional members who are not Commissioners.

(2)The appointment for executive purposes (as defined in Section 5 of the Forestry Act, 1919) of a Commissioner, instead of an Assistant Commissioner, for England and Wales and for Scotland respectively."

That is a step in the right direction but what I would like to know is what are the powers of these Committees. Are they adequate? I myself believe it is absolutely essential that these various Committees, certainly the Scottish Committee, should be brought under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Particularly it would be far better so far as Scottish questions are concerned to have the Secretary of State for Scotland in charge of forestry questions in Parliament, instead of the Lord President of the Council, as recommended by the Forestry Commission on page 90 of their Report, in paragraphs 551 and 552. The Commission say, in paragraph 551:
"It may be, however, in view of the larger schemes which we propose, that Parliament may desire that the Commission be placed

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under the control of a Minister. We do not recommend this change, but if it is made we consider that the Minister's jurisdiction should extend over the whole of Great Britain. In our opinion he should be the Lord President of the Council."
They go on to say in paragraph 552:
"Should the Lord President of the Council be charged with this responsibility, we consider that adequate co-ordination on questions of policy could be secured through a Committee, appointed by the Lord President and including the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister of Agriculture, and the Chairman of the Commission."
It has been said very often in the past that danger to the policy of the Forestry Commission if under a Minister of the Crown might arise from constant changes in the Government owing to General Elections and other causes, and that we might have a good and sympathetic Secretary for Scotland one year, to be followed by a bad Secretary for Scotland during the next years, with, of course, fluctuations in the affairs of the Forestry Commission. But this also applies to the suggestion by the Commission of the Lord President of the Council, who might also be changed from time to time. It does not seem to me therefore that that argument holds water. Since the Lord President of the Council might be changed in exactly the same way as a Secretary of State there seems no advantage in having the Lord President instead of the two Ministers primarily concerned. If Forestry policy were affected by the change of these Ministers it might be equally affected by a change of the Lord President. Therefore I think it is quite evident that the Commission would prefer to continue as they now are and have no proper Ministerial representation in Parliament. In other words, they would be nobody's children, politically, as they have been for the last twenty years. But I do not believe that that is a satisfactory or reasonable plan, and I think your Lordships will agree that there must be proper Ministerial responsibility in both Houses of Parliament.
Then again the basic laws of Scotland are quite different from English laws in regard to all matters that concern land, farming, agriculture and sylviculture. In addition to that, planning is being done separately for Scotland and for England. This point was made very clear in the letter written by the noble Earl, Lord Rosebery, to The Times. Many of your Lordships may have read the letter, but
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I would like to make this quotation from it.
"When the afforestation programme is decided it will presumably come under the planning authorities for revision; but the planning authorities in Scotland are not the same as those in England. It does appear, therefore, that if there is not a separate Commission for Scotland there is bound to be delay and friction of all kinds. Profound distrust of a single Commission has already been expressed in Scottish farming circles, in the Scottish Press irrespective of Party, and among local authorities and others interested in the planning of our land."
Another point is the selection of land for forestry schemes. The Report says that the land token has not produced very much mutton. In other words, it does not graze many sheep. That may be so, acre by acre, but what I think the farming community fears is that in taking, say, two hundred acres on one farm for planting they may be spoiling the agricultural output not only of this area but of a much larger extent by making the remainder of the farm useless. I was informed only the other day that a certain estate has been spoiled from an agricultural point of view by placing plantations in situations which militate against the grazing of the rest of the lands. They have taken the lower ground, which is useful for wintering stock, and so upset the balance of the farm. That might happen all over the country. The suggestion has been made that what would be needed is a Court or Committee to decide between the relative merits of forestry and agriculture. May the Lord defend us from any more Courts or Committees! I think we have enough. That would mean creating a new department, with very little to do; but it illustrates, I think, the point I have been trying to make, that agriculture and forestry should balance both dependently and interdependently, and that great care must be taken in both cases.
I think, too, that not enough actual survey work for prospective plantations has yet been done for anyone to speak within reasonable estimates of suitable areas. There is a great deal of loose talk of some "thousands of acres" being available for afforestation, much of which I feel sure would be a failure if planted. Take as an example the estate of Borgie, in the North of Sutherland which I presented to the nation at the time of the last war. That land was not suitable for afforestation. They thought it was and they planted

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trees, but after twenty-four years the average height of those trees is about six feet. That points to the necessity of being careful not to take bad land and plant it. At that time it was thought suitable. It is quite possible that by modern methods new ways may be found of making trees grow —for example, by ploughing up the land—but they tried that at Borgie and it was not successful. I should say that one of the first things to be done is to make a careful survey of the land in each district before we can come to a reliable estimate of plantable ground.
I will not reiterate all the reasons I gave in the last debate in October with regard to the necessity for Scottish control over Scottish problems. That has been gone into time after time. Before I sit down, however, there is one other point that I think should be brought before the attention of your Lordships. Whom have we to thank for the millions of trees now being cut down for essential war-work in this war? Is it the Forestry Commission, or is it the owners of private estates all over the country? What is not generally realized as it should be is that the bulk of the timber being cut at the present time is on private estates and not on the estates of the Forestry Commission. As in the last war, it is the private owner who is supplying the needs of the nation at the present time. It is through the efforts of the private owner that this country has been saved from defeat in two major wars, for without the timber he produced it is very doubtful if the nation could have carried on. I hope that point will be realized not only by the Commission but by the nation. What private owners want to know is whether there is a market for their timber once they have produced it. That is the main thing and that has been the serious fault of forestry in the past— having no market. It was cheaper to take pit-props from Scandinavia to the Scottish coalfields than to take them from our own forests. Is history to repeat itself or can we be sure of a good market for the private owner in the future? I know that the Forestry Commission Report makes every sort of suggestion and offer to the private owner, but it does not seem to me to produce concrete proposals for marketing the timber which any individual may desire to produce. May I say this, however: I do consider the Report of the Forestry Commission a masterly and
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extraordinary piece of work whether one agrees or not with everything it says, and I think Sir Roy Robinson and his associates should be congratulated on having produced after so much labour such a complete, learned and interesting work, dealing as it does, technically and otherwise, with every aspect of forestry in this country.
Now we come to the final point of my Motion—perhaps the most important point. What is His Majesty's Government going to do about this Report? They are obviously not going to pigeon-hole it. They have had the whole question before them for some time now, and it really seems that your Lordships might expect to-day, or very soon, to get some concrete and definite statement of their views in regard to post-war policy. I hope that we are not going to be put off in the same way as we have been put off over the question of post-war civil aviation. There is not the same excuse in this case. With regard to post-war civil aviation, we have been told, every time, that we cannot have definite statements made to us because other nations have to be consulted, and not only other nations but the Empire as a whole. My noble friend Lord Londonderry has brought up a Motion on the subject again and again, and I understand that he is renewing his attack very shortly. But here is a purely domestic matter inside this country. It is a matter that can be settled by ourselves alone, and there is, therefore, no cause for continued delay by the Government in giving a definite decision. I hope that it is not the case that the Government—or shall I say the Cabinet?—are quarrelling amongst themselves about the particular thing that is going to be done. Your Lordships are entitled, I think, to know soon exactly what the post-war forestry position is going to be. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD,THE EARL OF MANSFIELD, who had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government whether, in framing the future policy for forestry, they will consider the advisability of instituting a scheme of adequate planting loans without which the replanting of felled areas by private woodland owners is bound to be retarded, and would also move for Papers, said: My Lords, with the permission of your Lordships I would suggest that the Motion standing in my name be considered jointly with the one

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so ably introduced by the noble Duke, and as my Motion is in no way competitive with his, but rather, is supplementary to it, before coming to the terms of my own Motion perhaps your Lordships will permit me a few more general observations following up what the noble Duke has said. I would venture to disagree with the noble Duke very mildly upon the question of the amount of support that exists in Scotland for an entirely separate Forestry Commission. I do not think that there is very great feeling for such a separate Commission, and the fact that at the recent annual general meeting of the Royal Scottish Forestry Association in Edinburgh, out of an attendance of 250 to 300 members—landowners, practical foresters, factors, retired members of the Colonial Forestry Service and others—only three could be found to support a separate Commission, shows, I think, that the idea does not find very great favour with the forestry world in Scotland as a whole.
Having said that, I would say also, with great emphasis, that Scotland does demand virtual autonomy in the form of a branch or section of the Commission which shall run Scottish Forestry affairs. It has been suggested, and the suggestion has been agreed to by representatives from both countries, that the ideal thing would be to have a Commission of, say, ten members with an independent Chairman, which should meet occasionally in London or Edinburgh for the purpose of considering what one might call grand policy, that half the members of the Commission should be Scotsmen who, with perhaps two or three co-opted members, should meet under the Chairmanship of the independent Chairman at more frequent intervals in Scotland, and, except in the greatest matters of national policy, should be entirely independent in their actions. I have used the words "independent Chairman" because, despite all the great qualities shown by Sir Roy Robinson, I think that it would be undesirable to assume that the Chairman of the Forestry Commission should always have been a civil servant. There is a danger that such a one would be more concerned with interior administration than with the actual working policy of woodlands in which he would probably have little experience. There is also a doubt whether he would have the strong qualities of character of Sir Roy Robinson
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to enable him to stand up to the Treasury and to other persons who are apt to harm the future of forestry by niggardly insistence upon pecuniary detail. I would suggest that return to the earlier practice of having an independent Chairman would be preferable, without, of course, laying down as an axiom that a civil servant should never again occupy the position of Chairman.
With those preliminary observations I should like to come to the main terms of my Motion. I do not think that the Forestry Commission, or the general public, have realized sufficiently that the main obstacle in the path of the private owner, when it is a question either of replanting devastated areas of his woodlands or of extending that area to suitable ground not already afforested, is chiefly the question of the initial cost per acre of planting. I can speak only for central Scotland, but up to the present war our normal costs of planting were approximately £12 per acre for soft woods, and probably something like £5 more per acre for hard woods. Although it is very difficult to say what the costs will have risen to by the end of the war, it would, I think, be rash to assume that they are likely to be much less than double. In fact, one of the great colliery companies of Scotland is proposing to afforest after the war a large area of ground, of no particular agricultural value, which is already its property, to the extent of no less than 2,000 acres. And, despite the magnitude of this acreage, which naturally tends to reduce the initial cost, the factor of that company informs me that he expects the cost of planting per acre to be between £27 and £28. Some people think that this figure is grossly excessive, and in the estimates which I am about to lay before your Lordships I propose to take the very low figure of £20 per acre, in order to make my figures as small as possible, though I do not myself believe that £20 will be anything like enough, save in very exceptional circumstances.
In considering this question of initial cost, one must look at it from the points of view of two different types of woodland owner—the small or medium man and the large proprietor. Let us consider the more difficult case first, the case of the comparatively small owner who may find himself under the necessity of replant-

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ing anything between 100 and 500 acres. Such an owner is not likely to have much fluid capital. He certainly is unlikely to have any surplus income, and, if he is to replant even 200 acres at only £20 per acre, that means£4,000; and to find £4,000, even if the sum spread over a number of years, is often impossible for him. The Forestry Commission proposed in their Report—and few people seem inclined to object to it—that owners shall be compelled in the national interest to replant. What, therefore, is going to be the position of the email owner who is very anxious to replant, and who may even desire to extend his woodlands, but who is not financially in a position to do so? Even though his woods may be in a high state of efficient management, he will find himself liable to have them taken away permanently by the Forestry Commission, That, I submit, is extremely unfair to the small owner, who has provided a very high proportion of the woods which, as the noble Duke has so rightly said, have been made available by private owners in the last two wars.
Looked at from the point of view of the large owner, the position is still by no means satisfactory, although the difficulty due to financial stringency may not be quite so apparent at first sight. Such an owner may have anything from 500 to 5,000 or more acres to replant, to say nothing of the extension of planting which is going to be necessary on a very large scale if the ambitious but quite justifiable programme of the Forestry Commission is going to be entirely successful. The man who has 2,000 acres to replant, even at the low figure of £20 an acre, will have to find £40,000, and the man with 5,000 acres will have to find £100,000. There are few proprietors who can, without grave difficulty, make these sums available for the replanting or for the extension of woodlands.
But, it may be argued, what about the sums which have been received for the sale of the woods? It by no means follows that in this war very large sums have been received. Woods have been cut compulsorily, although seldom, if ever, have the Forestry Commission needed to apply compulsion; and, quite rightly, the maximum price of timber has been controlled, and it has been controlled at a figure which cannot be described as in any way excessive. Furthermore,
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although the point has not yet been cleared up, the Treasury officals, by an arbitrary mental process understandable only by a Treasury official, have decreed that in the event of the receipts from timber sales in any one year exceeding a certain figure, they are to be liable to Excess Profits Tax on a ratio which is, to say the least of it, entirely unfair and demonstrably false. Furthermore, there is the point that in a certain number of cases estates may have been mortgaged, and the owners may have taken advantage of the sale of timber to repay the mortgage, which economically would be a very sound thing to do.
There is a further point. Many properties—in fact, I imagine, all properties— have found it impossible to maintain the normal state of repairs and improvement during the war. Even if a licence can be obtained to carry out these repairs or improvements, it is usually impossible to get either the materials or the labour. The result is that many properties have accumulated on paper a surplus of money which ought to be devoted after the war to catching up with these arrears of maintenance; but these accumulated sums are, unfortunately, regarded by the right honourable Member for Woolwich as income, and are being swept into his metaphorically capacious maw. For the purpose of carrying on the war that is no doubt all very well, but it means that in many cases the repairs on agricultural properties will have to be subsidized after the war, to make up for this, from the proceeds of the timber which is sold. For all these reasons even the large properties arc not likely to be able to find without very great difficulty, and in many cases at all, the money necessary to finance the replanting of their felled woodlands.
We know that it is necessary in the national interest, however, that the area of woodlands in this country should be very greatly extended. Such extension cannot come quickly unless private owners co-operate with the Forestry Commission, but the private owner cannot co-operate unless he is going to have his task rendered easier by adequate financial assistance. I propose to lay before your Lordships my own scheme. It is not a new one, for I drew it up in my mind some five years ago. It has at least the practical merit that it proposes to extract from the taxpayer very

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much less money—if indeed any money at all—than is the case under the proposals of the Forestry Commission.
In brief, my suggestion is that the Forestry Commission should make available to the private owner, for replanting or for extending this planted areas, a planting loan at the rate of not less than £10 per acre for conifers and soft woods and £15 per acre for hard woods. These loans would carry no interest as long as the loan was in existence, but interest would be recovered with the capital when the timber was eventually felled. In addition to this, a planting grant at the rate of 5s. per acre per annum should be made available over the first twenty years of the life of every such plantation. That would be an additional loan of £5 per acre. At the end of the life of the wood, which in the case of conifers would probably be some eighty years, the proceeds of the sale would be divided as follows: firstly, the woodland owner would recover his net planting costs—that is to say, his gross planting costs less the planting loan which he had been advanced. Secondly, he would recover interest on his capital over that period at, say, 4 per cent., although that figure could, of course, be varied in any way found desirable. Thereafter the Forestry Commission should recover the original amount of their loan, interest upon it at whatever might be the Treasury rate over that period on an average, and, next, the maintenance grant that they had advanced. Any surplus that remained thereafter from the sale of the mature timber would be divided between the owner and the Commission in some proportion to be agreed upon, and which I tentatively suggest should be 80 per cent. to the owner and 20 per cent. to the Commission.
At once a question arises: Suppose at the end of that time the wood was not sold at a profit but at a loss, who is to bear the loss? The answer undoubtedly is the Government, because the Forestry Commission at the behest of the Government are urging, nay compelling, woodland owners to reafforest and to extend their woodlands in the national interest. If then, when the wood is mature, it is sold at a loss, it means that it has been an uneconomic production, which no sane owner would have entered upon in his own interest. He would have done it only for
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reasons of national security, and he is therefore entitled to be recouped for any losses that he has sustained. Furthermore, as the marketing of the timber obviously would be subject to some form of Government control, it is for the Government of the day to take steps to put such market on an economic basis, and thereby avoid any loss. One criticism that was made on this point was that you could not expect the Commission or the Government to enter upon an obligation which would render them liable to a loss of unknown magnitude. That argument falls immediately to the ground because I propose in as few sentences as may be to make very clear to your Lordships that the loss which the Government would sustain would be of an extremely limited character.
Let us assume the very worst, that the wood was eventually marketed so that no single penny of the Government advance was recoverable. And let us assume that a figure of 4,000,000 acres, which I think is considerably beyond possibilities, has been planted in the form of replanting or extension by private owners, at an average grant of, let us say, £10 per acre. The gross grant would be £40,000,000. In addition to that there would be another £20,000,000 for the maintenance grants—a total of £60,000,000. £60,000,000 spread out over the eighty years which I have assumed to be the normal life of a conifer plantation amounts to an annual loss of not more than three-quarters of a million a year, and I think I am correct in saying that for many years prior to the present war we were subsidizing sugar beet alone to the tune of ten times that amount. That loss therefore is a maximum theoretical loss, and one which in practice it would be quite impossible to achieve.
Unless some form of assistance of the nature that I have indicated to your Lordships is provided, I am afraid that it will not be possible for the great reafforestation and extension schemes to take effect. It is bound to be hampered and hamstrung, and the scheme that I have put forward, even at its very worst, would be considerably less expensive, I think, than the proposals of the Commission themselves. The Commission suggest, as all your Lordships are aware who have studied their Report, that a grant of some 25 per cent. of approved expenditure per

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annum should be repaid to the owner. Let us consider what would be the cost in the case of the 4,000,000 acres to which I have referred. A grant of 25 per cent. on an expenditure of £40,000,000 would mean that you would have £10,000,000 sunk to begin with. You would then have a quarter of the maintenance expenditure on top of that, and you would also have an indeterminate figure, which at the moment neither I nor the Commission could give, of the other maintenance losses of the rest of the woodlands. These figures would be likely to amount at least to as much as the gross loss which I suggest would be possible, and as those advances are in the nature of a complete and irrecoverable subsidy I suggest that, from the taxpayer's point of view, my scheme would be infinitely more advantageous.
In conclusion I join with the noble Duke in expressing my admiration for the Forestry Commission's Report. I entirely agree as to the urgent necessity of reestablishing our woodlands and of extending their area. There is undoubtedly a very large amount of ground which would be better under trees than under sheep, or in some cases under nothing at all. At the same time I agree that justifiable criticisms can be levelled against the Forestry Commission for certain unwise choice of ground that they have made in the past. If forestry is given its proper place in our national economy it can become an important minor industry in England, and in Scotland it can become a major industry. Forestry to Scotland is infinitely more important than it is to England, and if our forests are extended so that we can get that desideratum of small crofters, alternative employment for a part of the year, I am convinced that forestry may well be much more beneficial to the future of the Highlands than the hydro-electric schemes which your Lordships have so recently been discussing. There is much more that might be said, but I have already been obliged to inflict myself on your Lordships considerably longer than I usually do, or than I like to do.
THE EARL OF RADNOR: My Lords, I think the House ought to be extremely grateful to the noble Duke for bringing forward this Motion, and I personally am very grateful to him for having consented to its postponement from the date for
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which it was originally put down. I believed that for various reasons it would be a more helpful debate if it was held this week rather than last week, and I hope that I was right Certainly so far as I am concerned it is going to be very helpful that it takes place to-day and not a week ago. In 1916 there was very considerable concern over the difficulty of importing timber in war-time and the consequent inroads upon our woodlands in this country. A Committee was set up which was charged with the duty of reporting upon the position and making recommendations for the future. That Committee was under the chairmanship of the late Sir Francis Acland. It made a Report which was published, I think, in 1917, and as a result of that Committee's recommendations the Forestry Commission was set up in 1919.
To-day we are considering a Report by the Forestry Commissioners which has been made, unfortunately, in circumstances which are very similar indeed to those in which the Acland Committee reported—a time of national danger when great inroads are being made on our private woodlands, and when there are difficulties in the way of imports owing to the submarine warfare. There are, however, two important differences which I should mention. The first is that our woodlands have not had time to recover from the serious inroads made on them during the war of 1914–18. The second is that we have had very nearly twentyfive years' experience of State forestry under the Forestry Commission. During that time very considerable knowledge has been gained about the administration of forestry, and very great advances have been made in sylviculture and on the technical side of the management of woodlands.
These advances are due in a very large measure to the present Chairman of the Foresty Commission, Sir Roy Robinson, who has been connected with the Forestry Commission ever since its inception, and whose reputation as a sylviculturist stands as high as that of anyone in the world. Personally, having been in close contact with him, I must confess I have a great admiration for his knowledge and ability. Why the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, should complain of his having been a civil servant I do not know. His connexion with the Civil Service, as far as I know— and I have not been able to verify it—

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consists of having been a temporary civil servant for five years, subsequent to which he has been with the Forestry Commission all the time. I am not certain that a great many of us, even in your Lordships' House, could not be branded as having been at one time or another during our lives temporary civil servants. I am not sure that my present position in the Ministry of Agriculture, though it is not paid, might not be called that of a temporary civil servant.
Underlying the proposals which the Forestry Commission have put forward there are two main considerations. The first is the question of security of the nation, and the second is the proper utilization of the land of this country, not only the woodland, but those lands, of which there may be considerable acreages, which are preferably used as woodlands but are not so used now. Twice in a generation the position of timber has been one of the many major problems in the defence of this country, and if we are not going to learn by two wars what is necessary, then we shall never learn anything. Furthermore, much of the woodland in this country is not so productive as it ought to be. I do not want your Lordships to gather from that remark that I am blaming the private landowner. I appreciate, as the whole Forestry Commissioners appreciate, the fact upon which the noble Duke laid stress—namely, that both during the last war and during the present war the major part of the home-grown timber has come from private woodlands. Even during this war only an almost negligible quantity has been provided from State woodlands. Those woodland owners have kept their woodlands going through times when they have had absolutely no encouragement from His Majesty's Government, and many of them have kept their woodlands going in a state of productivity. They deserve the greatest credit from the nation for their patriotism, especially as they have agreed without a murmur to grave inroads being made on their woodlands during two wars.
The general proposals of the Forestry Commission are that there should be a target of 5,000,000 acres of effective woodland in this country, and that that target should be reached over a period of fifty years. There is, of course, quite rightly, a suggestion in the Report that that may
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be subject to periodical revision when forestry is discussed either in your Lordships' House or in another place; but I would make a reservation in that regard, and that is that, forestry being a longterm proposition, undue change is extremely undesirable and is liable to upset the whole organization. The reason for taking that target of 5,000,000 acres is that it is estimated that 5,000,000 acres of woodland, in full bearing, would provide approximately one-third of the whole requirements of timber in this country in normal circumstances. It is further estimated that in a time of national emergency—still assuming that that land is in full bearing from the timber point of view—accelerated felling might well be able to provide the whole requirements of the country over a period of three or four years. I am not taking into account the inroads now being made in the woodlands in existence in this country to-day. It is therefore chosen to aim at 5,000,000 acres rather as a security measure, and also in the belief that there are 5,000,000 acres of land which can usefully be kept under trees in this country. As to the 5,000,000 acres suggested, 2,000,000 could be obtained from existing woodlands—that is, either by replanting felled woodland areas or in actual growing woods to-day.
LORD PHILLIMORE: Private?
THE EARL OF RADNOR: Existing woodlands. The estimated total acreage of existing woodlands is 3.1 million acres, and 2,000,000 of these, it is estimated, will be suitable for effective afforestation, leaving approximately one-third—this is a guess more than anything else—of the existing woodlands, amenity woodlands or small woodlands, which would not be suitable for afforestation such as is suggested in the Report. This leaves 3,000,000 acres of bare land which will have to be acquired and afforested by the Forestry Commission. As to these 3,000,000 acres to be acquired by the Forestry Commission, that is to be spread over fifty years. In the first decade, which is the important period from the point of view both of the Forestry Commission and the country, it is planned that 500,000 acres of bare land should be planted by the Forestry Commission, and 500,000 of existing woodlands should be replanted either by the Forestry Commission or by private owners —making a total in the first ten years of 1,000,000 acres. That is under the

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"desirable" scheme put forward by the Forestry Commission, which is the one they wish to see put in force.
Fear has been expressed both by the two noble Lords who have already spoken, and by others, that land which is suitable for agriculture will be taken for forestry, and a number of cases have been brought forward purporting to show that land has been so taken in the past. First of all, I should like to say—this is in answer to the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield —that most careful consideration is always given by the Forestry Commission before any land is acquired, and on quite a number of occasions the Forestry Commission have refused to consider acquiring estates which have been offered them because they thought the land was too good for forestry purposes. There are also arrangements with the two Departments of Agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture here and the Department of Agriculture for Scotland, by which they are kept informed of all the proposals of the Forestry Commission for acquisition. Indeed, I might say that on the initiative of the Forestry Commission themselves in quite recent months the method by which there is liaison between the Forestry Commission and the Agricultural Departments has been improved—I trust satisfactorily.
I think that perhaps it is not an unfair criticism to say that in the years before the war the Ministry of Agriculture were not very interested in what the Forestry Commission acquired or did not acquire, and it is also, I think, rather a fair criticism to say that many of the people who state that land which has been taken for the Forestry Commission should have been kept for agriculture are being wise in the light of recent events and recent knowledge rather than of knowledge which was in anybody's mind at the time the land was acquired. Perhaps the greatest argument in favour of the Forestry Commission lies in the prices they have paid for the land they have acquired in the past. The acreage is considerable. The area acquired since the Forestry Commission commenced is 438,000 acres which have been bought and 216,000 acres which have been either leased or feud. The average net cost of the plantable land which has been purchased by the Forestry Commission amounts to £2 7s. 7d. an acre and the
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average net rental of the leased or feud land has been 1s. 11d. an acre. I do not think that even before the war those who have knowledge of agricultural values would have thought that those figures indicated any great agricultural value.
I might say, furthermore, that I have seen particulars of a number of cases where public complaints have been made about land secured by the Forestry Commission which is said to be of agricultural value. In every case that land has been acquired very cheaply, and some of it has subsequently proved useful for agricultural purposes under war-time conditions. In every case of acquisition by the Forestry Commission of land which is of agricultural value, they have let it for agricultural purposes, or used it for forest workers holdings or, occasionally, for forestry nurseries. In one particular case that was brought to my notice I was told that the land ought never to go back to forestry. It was a case of land in Devonshire near Hal will Forest. This is an area of 4,400 odd acres. It was acquired in thirty-four separate parcels over a rather long period of time. The land was either rough moorland and uneconomic or derelict or semi-derelict enclosed land. All of this land which was lettable has been let. Since the war began the war agricultural committees have by arrangements taken from the Forestry Commission a matter of 532 acres. Since the Forestry Commission have had that land they have spent a considerable amount of money on draining, fencing, killing vermin and the like. Even so, the war agricultural committees were not prepared to pay a rent of more than 4s. 7½d. an acre which I think must be an indication of the value that they put on that land. Incidentally, I might mention that in that area the purchase price varies from 40s. an acre to £4 an acre.
That deals, I hope, effectively with the Commission and their acquisition of land suitable for agriculture. But there still is the problem of finding 3,000,000 acres over fifty years or 500,000 acres in the first ten years. There are 16,000,000 acres of rough grazing in this country and I think it is not unlikely that, with careful consideration, land will be found which can usefully be put to forestry and withdrawn from rough grazing. I might, in that connexion, draw your Lordships' attention to employment under forestry

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conditions as compared with rough grazing. There are some extremely interesting and illuminating facts and figures given on page 41 of the Commissioners' Report, but I will not go into them in detail. I might also indicate to your Lordships that, low though the price has been at which we have acquired what after all is a very considerable acreage of land, the Forestry Commission have never as yet had to use the compulsory powers which Parliament conferred on them.
May I row turn for a moment to the question of private woodlands, which was really much the most difficult problem that the Forestry Commissioners had to deal with when considering this Report? First of all, we had no knowledge as to whether any private owner, after the war, will be in a financial position to do anything in the way of replanting. That lies with the Government. Added to the ordinary financial difficulties with which the private owner will be faced, is another point: this is that the Forestry Commissioners feel very strongly that there must be, after the war, a continuation of felling licences in order to conserve such stocks of standing timber as may still be left in this country. That may easily cripple the private landowner to some extent in any replanting programme he wants to carry out, but we do consider that it is absolutely essential in the national interest that such stocks of timber as may be left to us after the war should be conserved as far as possible. There is also the problem which naturally arises, that the timber trade is apprehensive of the continuation of felling licences, in that that continuation might well cut into such little trade as there may be left to them after the war. I may say that conversations of the most amicable nature are going on with the timber trade now, and they are being extremely helpful.
But the main scheme, so far as private woodlands is concerned, is dedication. The scheme proposed involves an owner in saying whether he is prepared and able to carry on his woodlands as woodlands in the national interest. If he is unable to do so the alternative will be acquisition by the Forestry Commission—that is to say, acquisition by the State. I would like to clear up a small point regarding that word "acquisition." I think a number of people have an idea that acquisition
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means purchase. It does not necessarily mean purchase. It may mean lease or feu, and there is no suggestion that it should be a compulsory purchase with all the severance that that may mean to any estate. I hope that the idea that we have got to buy will not be allowed to be thought of as a necessary part of our acquisition. That is not the intention of the Forestry Commission.
Underlying that question of dedication and control of the forestry, both private and public, in this country, is the principle of the proper utilization of our wood-lands so as to ensure that they should be as productive as possible. Small wood-lands are an extremely difficult problem to deal with, but I do not think that need loom quite as large in the minds of those who are perhaps rather critical of the Commission's recommendations as it seems to do. First of all, many of the small woodlands will come in the million acres or thereabouts of woodlands which we do not contemplate will come into the scheme. If there is an owner with a fair acreage of woodland in small blocks there is no reason why we should not take the whole area. I know one owner who has eight hundred acres of woodland, but although no single block is bigger than ten acres that estate would be very suitable for dedication. Where there are small woodlands near an area where there are larger woodlands and they can fit in with the management of those woodlands, there seems to me no reason why these small woodlands should not be dedicated if the owner so wishes. So a good many of what we call small woodlands would come into the dedication scheme without any difficulty.
In all this work, and particularly in regard to dedication and our relations with the private woodland owners, the Forestry Commission desire very much indeed to work in harmony with the forestry organizations and the land organizations, and of course with the individual forest and land owner The suggestions we put forward have already in fact been the subject of consideration at a meeting of forestry and land-owning organizations, a meeting which I understand was extremely harmonious and hopeful. One hopes that that spirit will continue. There is, however, one point about which I personally, at the time when we were discussing the details of the Report, felt very strongly. Dedication proposals mean con-

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trolling the land owner's operations on his own land—I think the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, touched on this point— and I have always felt as a principle that control which may involve an individual in expense controlled by the State should on the other hand involve the State in some obligation to ensure that that owner gets some return on the money he is compelled to spend. Unfortunately forestry is a very long-term process, and it would be extremely difficult to arrive at any guaranteed price to be paid one hundred years hence which would have any value or promote any confidence in anybody, let alone the woodland owner. A great deal may happen in one hundred years. We even hope at the present moment that a great deal may happen in a few months. It is impossible to look one hundred years ahead, but it is the belief of the Forestry Commission that the trend of prices must be favourable to the man who grows timber. Many countries are depleting their timber resources and scarcity is bound to lead to a gradual rise in price.
In regard to finance we came to the conclusion that in view of the uncertain situation there should be a percentage grant of the actual cost of the woodland until such time as it was self-supporting The noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, has already put before the Forestry Commission his scheme for grants. The scheme has not been with us long enough to be considered in detail. What the Forestry Commission desire is that such financial assistance should be given to the woodland owner as will enable him to re-afforest his own woodland, and encourage him to do so, within the main lines of the scheme and on proper conditions of a reasonable nature such as Parliament would agree to. Any scheme that will achieve that financial assistance will be suitable. We are not tied to one particular form of financial assistance.
I would like to touch on one other point before I finish, and that is the question of amenity. That has been a bone of contention between the Forestry Commission and a great number of people at different times. Perhaps I can say as a Forestry Commissioner of not very long standing that I know there have been difficulties in the past which might possibly have been avoided, but to-day our relations with the forestry organizations, with the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the National Trust
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and local bodies are very satisfactory. I can assure your Lordships that the Forestry Commission desire nothing more than to meet the requirements of the nation so far as amenity is concerned. I may mention that there have been long negotiations with the National Trust about Eskdale. Those negotiations have now ended successfully, and I am informed that within the last few days Professor Trevelyan has agreed to be Chairman of a Committee to start a national park in the forest area in that part of the country. There are, of course, still people who prefer to see what they call picturesque woodlands, and complain when woods are cut down and reafforested on proper forestry lines. There are people who, when they see a cornfield full of poppies, say "How lovely," whereas in the eye of the expert that means a very bad field of corn. To the expert a so-called picturesque wood may be a very terrible thing which ought to be producing more than it is. I need not say more on that point.
The expansion of activity proposed means a considerable expansion of organization within the Forestry Commission. I do not propose to start out upon the thorny path of whether there should be a separate Forestry Commission for Scotland. It would appear from the two speeches to which we have already listened that there is some difference of opinion on that point even in Scotland itself. But it is proposed that there should be a considerable measure of devolution. It is proposed that there should be two staffs, one for private woodlands and one for State woodlands; that those staffs should be interchangeable, and that they should be united at a high executive level. There are various other provisions which I hope will prove satisfactory. I have detained your Lordships long enough, and I know there are a number of other speakers. I have not enlarged on a number of rather important but still subsidiary points, such as national parks, forestry workers' holdings and scale of employment, but those matters are dealt with in detail in the Report if your Lordships like to read about them. I do not intend either to enter upon the other thorny path of the constitutional position. The Forestry Commission, as is made perfectly clear in their Report, are happy in their present position outside any Government Department.

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May I conclude by putting before your Lordships very briefly the five essential conditions which the Forestry Commission have included in their Report as being necessary if forestry in this country is to be successful? The first of these is the recognition by the Government of the importance of timber production at home; the second is continuity of national policy, including finance; the third is an ad hoc forestry authority; the fourth is a unified forest service—the Forestry Commissioners feel that is very important—and the fifth is adequate services for research, education and information. I know that I have left out a lot that is of importance, and I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for my shortcomings. I would say once again that I hope—and I would emphasize this—that the Forestry Commission, whatever its future may be, and whatever the Government may decide, will get from those who are interested in forestry, both forest owners and land owners, sympathy and help, because we are prepared to meet anybody who is helpful so far as we possibly can.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, I should like to take this occasion to say how grateful I am to the noble Duke who has initiated the Motion for bringing this subject before your Lord ships. It is a subject that is very important, and one that has, in the past, been overmuch neglected. I should also like to express on my own behalf, and I think, too, on behalf of the other noble Lords on these Benches, great appreciation of the Report of the Forestry Commission. It is a magnificent piece of work. It goes very thoroughly into the subject, and even if we do not agree with every point of it we do support the feelings which have moved the Forestry Commissioners to make such a Report. I hope that it will have the necessary attention of His Majesty's Government and others.
I will not go into detailed questions relating to the economic side of this matter. It seems to me that anyone who has studied this Report must recognize very clearly the essential necessity of reafforestation after the war. To me, I must confess, it was staggering to find that only 4 per cent, of the timber used was home-grown. This programme proposes, I understand, to produce nearly one-third of our timber requirements. From the
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economic point of view it would seem to be essential to produce this timber for our use and to enable us to establish markets and trade after the war. Obviously, we should not have to import so much timber and we should be able to import other things instead. Quite apart from the economic side, the overwhelming argument for reafforestation seems to me to be bound up with security reasons. These I do not think I need to emphasize. In the last war we cut down right and left everywhere. We have no conception of how much timber has been felled in this war, but one thing is perfectly clear: that at the end of the war our position as regards timber for the future will be desperate and will need desperate measures to counteract it. That is obvious. I do not wish to labour those points, for it is easy to realize, on the economic side, that the demand for timber will grow greater after the war, and that from the point of view of national security it is essential to grow more timber.
There are just one or two other points to which I should like to draw your Lord-ships' attention. If, as the Report suggests, a great deal of land is going to be acquired for afforestation—in fact, I gather it will be about 3,000,000 acres, and that is a very large area—I would earnestly suggest to His Majesty's Government that it should be acquired by a National Land Commission and that it should not be completely taken over by the Forestry Commission, as they wish. I suggest that any land, whether it is required for agricultural purposes, for roads or in connexion with some scheme, as well as for forestry, should be taken over by a National Land Commission, and then either leased out to the Forestry Commission or dealt with by whatever arrangement the Government prefer. But let us look for a moment at the contrary position. If this is not done we may well find ourselves in the position of having one Government Department competing against another Department for different pieces of land. I am confident that even the most ardent advocates of the merits of private competition would hardly desire such a state of affairs to exist. I suggest that this competition for sites of land between different Departments can only be obviated by having a National Land Commission vested with complete control to

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allocate various portions of land to forestry or agriculture or anything else, as might be deemed desirable.
Another great point which we should bear in mind, I consider, is the necessity for continuity of policy. As the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, has suggested, forestry is a very long-term matter, and for that reason we cannot be faced to our benefit with the position which developed after the last war, nor can we allow Geddes' axes or any other axes, in some moment of financial panic, to fell thousands of saplings which could have been used to reafforest our country. In other words, whatever is embarked on as a long-term scheme must be continually provided for by the necessary funds and the necessary support. For that reason I would suggest that it would be better to have forestry put under some Minister who would be responsible for it. It seems to me that there would be more chance of the cause of forestry being advocated properly in the Cabinet if there were a Minister of Cabinet rank who would support a forestry programme, would be prepared to answer questions, and would be responsible to Parliament. I do not venture to discuss whether it is desirable that the Minister should be the Minister of Forestry, the Minister of Agriculture or someone else, but I think it would be a great advantage to have a responsible Minister. I do not, however, agree with the suggestion that the Minister should be the Lord President of the Council. I think this calls for someone who will interest himself in this very vital problem.
I now come to what is, I think, perhaps the most controversial portion of the Report—namely, the portion relating to private woodlands. I want to avoid the controversy on the subject of Scotland versus England and whether or not there should be a separate Commission for Scotland. I do not pretend to know the position in Scotland, and moreover, I have always found that if Scotsmen want their own way they usually get it. One might as well, therefore, save one's breath. With regard to private woodlands, I listened with great attention to the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield. His scheme seemed to me very ingenious and very logically worked out; but, if I may venture humbly to make a tentative suggestion,
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it seemed to me also that, like the scheme in the Report, it had one drawback, in that it was loaded very much in favour of the private owner of woods. I agree with the noble Duke who proposed this Motion that we owe a great debt to the private owners of woodlands. In the past, the great forests of this country have been produced entirely by private owners, and in two wars our timber supplies have been secured to us as a result of their forethought and enterprise. That is admitted, but I do not think that that is an argument against the proposals of the Forestry Commission.
In the past, all the timber has been in the hands of private owners, while the Forestry Commission is a relatively new growth which has not yet had a proper chance of development. After this war it is exceedingly doubtful whether there will be many, if any, private owners who will have the money to develop or replant woods in the way which will be necessary. If they can do so, I should be very much in favour of it, but, if not, I do not see why the State should subsidize the owners of woodlands for replanting and not reap a profit out of it. If the private owner is going to receive his 25 per cent., I think that the State ought to reap a 25 per cent, profit when the woodlands are eventually felled. I should like to study the scheme of the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, with more care before going into details with regard to it, but it seems to me that under that scheme it is the private owner whose interests are secured. He is paid first, and only if there is any residue does the State, which has financed the business, get the balance. We do not know what that balance may be in a hundred years' time. It seems to me that the very necessity of this amount of 25 per cent, being given to the owner is an argument for the State taking over most of the woods which cannot be managed economically by private individuals. I do agree, however, that free advice and help should be given to all owners of woods and forests who need it. Any owner who wishes to plant on a big scale should have the experience of Government research given to him without any cost to himself, so that he can replant to the best advantage and so that his sylviculture may be the best possible.
There is one other big problem which has to be considered. Quite apart from

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the economic advantage of reafforestation, which is very necessary, and apart from reasons of security, there is one other reason which should compel us to undertake a programme on the scale outlined, or on an even larger scale, and that is the reason of climate. It does not seem to me that that has received enough attention. We do not have to go so far as the United States and Mexico to find examples of where the indiscriminate cutting down of trees has turned fertile land literally into desert; we have merely to look at some of the islands on the west coast of Ireland, islands which in the days of Queen Elizabeth were fertile and covered with trees and good soil, but which, through the indiscriminate cutting down of trees, are now literally barren pieces of rock, where nothing grows but a few tufts in odd crevices and a few ferns. I do not say that there is any danger of this country becoming a barren rock, but I do suggest that, unless we do something to counteract the extreme amount of felling which is going on during this war, our climate will be considerably altered. That is a point to which I hope that those who sponsor the policy and programme of the Forestry Commission will give some consideration.
I should also like to say a word on the question of amenity. I was very glad to see in the Report of the Commissioners the proposal for national parks. I think that that will make a great difference to the people of this country. I agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, said about the poppies in the corn. I agree that many ornamental woods are not the best timber-bearing. But I think that a great deal can be done outside the national parks with regard to the layout of woods, so that they shall not only provide windbreaks but at the same time improve the appearance of the countryside. We do not want to go over completely to growing soft woods; we must remember that the hard-wood trees—the big oaks and so on of this country—are the trees which have made our countryside one of the most beautiful in the world. I should like the Government to try to take some steps to preserve the ornamental trees which we still have in this country. There are parts of the countryside where every second or third tree is covered with ivy. It requires very little labour to cut the roots now, and otherwise in time the ivy will strangle the tree. I think that some
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propaganda by the B.B.C. and in the Press might induce many farmers and owners to cut the ivy, and in that way many thousands of beautiful trees will be saved. I should like to end by expressing my great appreciation of the Report and my hope that His Majesty's Government will adopt the full and desirable plan, and not the intermediate one, because this is a question of very great national importance.
LORD TRENT: My Lords, the unenviable position of the owners of woodlands in this country, to which the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, has referred, is in no way due to the Forestry Commission; in my opinion it is due to the fact that the Government did not adopt, at the beginning of the war, the course which was recommended by progressive woodland owners, which was to pay an adequate sum of money for the timber as it was cut and to make it an obligation on the owner to reserve for replanting a certain amount of the money received. That is done in a great many countries. At the present time owners in this country are at a very great disadvantage; they are trying to compete on straight sales of timber. I have been told by progressive forest owners in Scandinavia that they started to make their forestry really profitable only when they had not only sales of timber but sales of pulp and charcoal.
I was very astonished a few months ago when, in a debate in this House, the noble Lord, the Minister of War Transport, referring to producer gas engines, said that they were unsatisfactory and uneconomic compared with petrol engines. I have been in a forest where every car and every lorry was run on charcoal from the estate, and that was not a small forest but a forest of over 70,000 acres of growing timber, in which, in the winter, with the temperature below zero, there were over a thousand men working and 600 horses employed. I do not know how many lorries and cars they had, but they were experimenting in this way. It seems to me that after the war this country will have to adopt a different attitude from that taken up in the past, when we wanted the best of everything more or less irrespective of what it cost. After the war we shall have to make do with what we have and with what we can produce in this country; and I hope that the Government will pay attention to the

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question of using producer gas from charcoal, because I am certain that it will help our forestry tremendously.
One reason why I support the noble Duke who proposed this Motion this afternoon is that I thoroughly agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, said, that forestty holds out enormous possibilities for the Highlands of Scotland—far greater than for places further south. I do not believe there is any body in the world who could have drawn up a better report than the Forestry Commission have done, but in my opinion it is not broad enough. Forestry is a much bigger thing than this. I hope your Lordships will not think I am trying to be rude in any way, but this is the sort of report that a board of directors would be inclined to put out, with its forecast of the return on capital in fifty years. Forestry is a way of life; the people who live all their lives in woods are magnificent people. I believe that on the West coast of the Highlands of Scotland you can do much in time—and it will take a long time. They are talking of fifty years, when the rotation of a tree in this country is eighty years and with many trees over a hundred years.
I quite agree that for technical purposes it is desirable to have one body for the whole of Britain. You have the example of the Royal College of Forestry in Sweden, to which people go from all over the world to study, and it would be silly to have two technical colleges here. But, bearing in mind the great contribution that forestry could make to the prosperity of Scotland, I hope it could be put under a progressive Minister like the present Secretary of State for Scotland, who is taking a great interest in all developments for the benefit of Scotland. I remember talking to one of the best known and best informed men up on the West coast at a time when a carbide factory had been under discussion, and I said to him, "Why don't you get a pulp factory in Fort William, which would serve the whole of the West coast? "There was a tremendous lot of timber in Mull then which the owners could not sell at all. I should add that I have not got these facts confirmed by the Forestry Commission, but I have no doubt that Lord Radnor will correct me if I am wrong. My West coast authority said, "Well,
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there is a scheme for a pulp factory on the West coast when the Forestry Commission agree. But it is proposed to put it at Fort Augustus, which would not be any good for the landlords on the West coast." I can assure your Lordships that very often even at Christmas we get some fine mild weather, and it is perfectly possible to tow big rafts of timber round to some central point of the West coast, where you can get your timber pulped. In this Report the Commission say that the timber should be grown for purposes of emergency as near as possible to the place where the timber will be used, and broadly speaking that is in the south of the country. It did not strike me that it was going to be very helpful to the timber grower in Scotland if, to prepare for the next war, the bulk of our timber is grown in Norfolk near where the munition factories will be placed.
There was just one other point that I wanted to raise. The Commission has now existed for about twenty-five years, and I think it is fair to say that the feeling between the farmers and the Commission, at any rate in Scotland, to put it mildly, does not grow any better. It is probably worse now than it was twenty-five years ago. The last time I was in Sweden, I was informed that just about the time when the Forestry Commission was born, a new forestry law was passed in that country the essence of which was to try to help landowners, large or small, or companies, to produce good timber, and to do it by providing a market, and not by confiscating their land if they did not do it, but by fining them. In each county there is a small committee of three, the chairman appointed by the Crown, one member appointed by the county agricultural committee, and one by the county council, which has an expert forester in attendance. By this means, during the time when relations have been deteriorating in this country between the representatives of forestry and the representatives of agriculture, they have been able to persuade the farmers, from the results that they have obtained in improved prices and better crops, that forestry is not the enemy of agriculture, but, properly worked, is complementary to agriculture. That, I think, is of very great advantage, particularly in places where you have a number of men who only work on the crofts for a certain number of

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months in a year, and who want profitable employment for the rest of the year.
I hope that in the remarks that I have made I have not been unfair to the Forestry Commissioners, because it is only just to them to say that they have given us our only national park. It is a very mixed bag that we have got out of this thing. There are some very fine points, but I hope your Lordships will agree with me that when you come to deal with forestry for the nation we want the head of it to be a Minister with a wide national outlook, and not one who will look at it merely from a technical point of view with the aim of making forestry a paying concern as quickly as possible. I have very great pleasure in supporting the noble Duke in the view that the head of the new body, whatever it is called, should be the Secretary of State for Scotland, with the reservation that I should like to have the same technical staff for the whole of Great Britain.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY: My Lords, I do not propose to follow the noble Duke very far in his opening remarks, because the subject has been debated recently in this House, the ground has been covered to-day, and there is so much to be said about forestry itself. The views and anxiety expressed as to future Ministerial and Parliamentary responsibility for the direction of forestry show that there are great differences of opinion, and I hope the Government will be able to come to a decision which will meet both the wishes of the Departments and the needs of Scotland in particular, by which country a very large contribution is bound to be made in future. I hope also that in coming to their decision the Government will see that there is in the Cabinet in future someone who will have responsibility for making sure that forestry has its full scope and place in the life of the nation and is not neglected as formerly. It certainly did seem to be a weakness in prewar days that there was no Minister in the Government to whom recommendations on behalf of forestry could be made throughout the period when it was going through such a difficult time. I hope also that, as far as possible, the previous policy of one authority, one service, and one policy will be continued and brought into line, whatever is laid down in the future. The noble Earl, Lord Radnor,
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has gone far to assure people in private forestry that the authority in future will have separate branches or departments which will be able to attend to both the needs of the State and of private forestry. All those who have admired in the past the ability and the work for forestry and for the Forestry Commission of the present Chairman will welcome and endorse the tributes which have been paid to him for his great achievement in compiling this Report on post-war forestry.
There seems to be agreement on all sides of the House as to the great importance of making provision for the growing of timber on a far larger scale after the war. As has been shown, there will be an exceedingly small quantity of timber left, and it will be required both for security and for commercial purposes. I should like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Trent, in what he has said about certain uses of timber, and make reference to the extraordinarily wide range of uses of timber and its by products in Germany during the last few years as a result of the ingenuity and inventions of scientists—food, sugar, clothing, explosives, wood gas for transport, lubrication, proteins said to be enough for the whole German Army, and a great deal besides. I am quite sure that this sort of thing could be done just as well in this country if we were pressed to do it and when the opportunity arises after the war. I believe that in the United States, where the facilities are greater, they are making just as great strides. Here, unfortunately, so far nothing very much seems to have been done in these directions. Possibly the Ministry of Supply would have a smaller feeling of shame for all the wood they are at present obliged to waste after felling if they were able to put it to better use.
The Report of the Commission has still to be completed in regard to private woodlands. There are a great number of points for consideration which really deserve more publicity than they ever secure. I should like to mention a few of them, but I wish this task was in abler hands than mine. It is difficult to make the subject interesting. Also, coming from the freshness of the woods in the country, one perhaps finds the atmosphere of this House to-day rather heavy. I should like to speak for a few moments on behalf of a very large number of owners of woodlands, large

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and small, especially the owners of smaller woodlands, because their task is infinitely greater, and also for the head foresters, working foresters, and all those in the timber-growing industry in Great Britain who want an opportunity to continue to grow timber, to do it better than they have done in the past, and who feel there is a real danger of the production of timber in privately-owned woods being pushed on one side. Reference has been made by the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, to a recent conference between the Forestry Commissioners and representatives of private woodland owners. It is fair to say that on that occasion the atmosphere and the spirit were very friendly, and that a number of assurances were given—or definitions and explanations of certain paragraphs in the Report —which go a considerable way towards removing a number of the criticisms and some of the anxiety we originally felt about the Report. It must be remembered that in 1939 the area of private woodlands was six times that of the Forestry Commission's woodlands. Therefore it is still very important that these woodlands should be properly tended and should grow good timber.
The dedication scheme has been mentioned. Its terms may not be entirely welcome to everyone, but they are very much intended to be on the lines of what the forestry societies have been advocating for many years—namely, that there should be an opportunity to grow timber, and that it is necessary we should put our land to good use and manage our timber better than in the past. Views have been expressed that private forestry has failed in the past, and the impression has sometimes been spread that large subsidies have therefore been wasted. It is necessary to show that such impressions are unjustified and incorrect. If this is not done a bias will remain against private forestry which will be very harmful to it, especially when Parliament is considering what financial assistance should be given in future. When these criticisms are made, you very rarely hear anything said about the handicaps under which private forestry is carried on, or the uneconomic aspects, which a careful perusal of the Report will show are acknowledged. It has been the accepted policy of this country to rely on imports for supplies of
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timber and there has been no encouragement or support for prices in peacetime. Therefore, as private forestry has admittedly not had a fair opportunity, it cannot justifiably be condemned. It is shown in the Report that a hundred years ago when the nation needed timber the land-owners were active in growing it.
I think the owners of small woodlands will be disappointed that the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, could not give more encouragement to them to-day, but I hope that during the course of discussions it will be shown that they will have a place in the forestry of the future. The importance of their woodlands has been acknowledged, yet for the contribution which they have made during this war not very much is offered to them that we can see so far. The Forestry Commission show that they are ready to take over and manage any of the woodlands selected by them, but by pointing out that there are approximately 1,000,000 acres of small woodlands which they are doubtful about coming into the scheme, they also have shown pretty clearly that they regard the future of those woodlands as uneconomic and not a proposition which the Commission would like to take on themselves It is clear therefore that the small woodlands are more a matter for those who live beside them than for a State body.
In discussing the previous uneconomic aspect one must have regard to the question of thinnings. Noble Lords who grow timber will be aware that in the growing of soft woods we must, after a period and at regular intervals, remove the thinnings from the young plantations, and unless this can be done profitably and unless there is an outlet for those thinnings, they have to remain in the woods very much to the detriment of these plantations and the final crop. The Forestry Commission acknowledge that a market must exist in the future for these thinnings. I hope Parliament will insist upon some very definite line about this and also about transport charges, especially from the more remote areas. These are the examples which alone show that the proper management of soft woods has been quite impossible in prewar years. In view of this any criticism of previous management of woodlands must be brought to nothing.
In case it is believed by anyone that large subsidies were paid before the war

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for the growing of timber in private wood-lands, I think it ought to be realized that the total sum paid in planting grants was £336,ooo, not annually but during all the years between the two wars. Your Lordships can compare this with the hundreds of millions given for food production during the war and with the very large sums given annually before the war. You can compare it also with the £12,000,000 spent on forestry before the last war, including £1,500,000 for overhead charges. This £336,000 only works out at 2s. 2½d. per acre for all the woodlands and all the timber which the Government have had at their disposal during the war. I would like to point out what a tremendous bargain it has been to the nation to have all this timber at such a small expenditure to the country. The nation has recouped itself over and over again in different ways, because the strictly controlled prices for timber are far below what would have had to be paid for imported timber, and there also has been a great saving in the cost of shipping. There are also in Death Duties and taxation other means by which the Government have recouped themselves from woodlands or the profits on timber. I think at least one-third of the total sum provided for the production of timber in the whole of the private woodlands of this country has been paid in taxation. Thus it will be seen that in war-time a large proportion of the profit is taken by the nation and in peace-time they leave the growers of timber in the lurch.
Looked at from another point of view, the Forestry Commission claim that at best and if all goes well, and there is no taxation to pay, they hope to show a profit of 3 per cent, or a little more during the course of these operations. Yet their operations consist largely of the mass planting of vast areas and that should be done very much more cheaply than the work which we have to carry out in the case of very large numbers of small woods. In my neighbourhood blocks of 10,000 acres or larger are planted by the Forestry Commission, whereas in my case I have 400 woods of an average acreage of 20 acres each and a small number of larger sizes. That is typical of private woodlands. We have a very much more difficult and more expensive task than the Forestry Commission in dealing with small plantations of every type of timber because we have to grow the timber in
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all kinds of places, on steep hillsides, on banks, in ravines and on any ground not suitable for farming. If the Forestry Commission had to undertake the cultivation of small woods on the scale that we have to do, I venture to suggest that their expenses would be higher per acre than they are now. From the figures given in the Report they estimate in their case afforestation expenses of even £40 an acre for the future. If your Lordships look back to the past, to the £2 per acre offered to private woodland owners, you will see that that sum would not go very far towards the cost of planting the area which the Forestry Commission have been successful in doing before this war began.
I think it might also be said that private forestry cannot really be treated quite like a normal commercial enterprise. Our job is to make the best use of the land to grow timber for the nation and for local purposes, to provide shelter and also to beautify the area. The profitmotive has not been the only reason for our forestry. At the same time we cannot be expected to carry on in the same way in the future at a serious loss, and I do not think Parliament will wish to withhold from timber producers the amount of assistance which they may find it necessary to give to farm producers in order to enable them to pay good wages to their men and to sell their goods.
There arc one or two other points I would like to mention. Some people are under the impression that it is an advantage always to timber producers to be able to sell their timber in large quantities during the war. I do not think it is generally realized to what an extent it is a disadvantage. When anyone has a large area of woodland and is obliged to sell in a space of three or four years an enormous proportion of the woods, it means that capital assets in timber are rapidly reduced and taxation has to be paid on the revenue from them. The timber felled includes a very large amount of immature timber. This means that a very definite capital loss falls on the owner who is obliged to sell it and that there is a very much increased cost of re-establishing that woodland as compared with the cost when it was planted perhaps thirty or forty years ago. There is really a responsibility on the Government to assist in the re-establishment of these woodlands which have been taken long before maturity.

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I would like to make it clear that any form of assistance will be to the advantage of the nation and the taxpayer; that it will be a good investment, and not simply an expense on the part of the nation and the taxpayers. I feel that there is a debt to the growers in view of what I have said, and that any grant made to them can reasonably be regarded as in the nature partly of a repayment, inasmuch as the Government have taken a definite proportion of the profit in that timber. In any case I think that any grant should be regarded partly as a recompense for services rendered of an uneconomic nature, and partly as an insurance against loss. I do not want to say much about the actual method of assistance except that it is dependent on a high standard of forestry and good management. What I have said also shows that it will not be something given for nothing, but that it will have to be earned. It does mean a certain amount of control, which can be of a helpful nature, as it has been in foreign countries. I hope that under wise administration it will be helpful in this country, too. It means that 75 per cent, of the loss on re-establishment of wood-lands is borne by the growers. That means a big expenditure during the first ten or twenty years, and there may be another twenty-five or thirty years during which there will be no sufficient profit to recoup the owner for the original expenditure. Therefore it means that many owners will have difficulty in finding money for re-afforestation. I hope facilities to obtain money will be given at a moderate rate of interest, such as 3 per cent., but it appears that it may be available on terms not quite as favourable as those for the Forestry Commission. As one interested I do not wish to say what should be the form and the amount of assistance, but I feel confident that if a thorough examination is made of the cost of re-afforestation now and of the question whether it is an advantage to make a grant; I believe Parliament will respond by making available what is necessary to establish a thriving industry, which in many ways will be an asset to the nation.
There are many other points in the Report which deserve attention, but with which one cannot deal to-day, such as education, advisory services and the
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regional committees which it is suggested should be of an advisory character. We think these committees ought to have some executive functions as well. They can help the Forestry Commission and Parliament in looking after the woodlands, particularly the small woodlands, and seeing that they get fair play. I hope that this subject will not in any sense be made an issue between private enterprise and nationalization. It should be treated on its merits, and I hope there will be encouragement for private forestry and State forestry side by side. Each can make a big contribution. If you ask private woodland owners to grow timber after the war and make it possible, you will find a tremendous response. I hope that the interest now being shown in forestry will continue and that your Lord-ships will endeavour to see that forestry receives the attention it deserves.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: My Lords, I do not intend to keep your Lordships any length of time, but I would like to make the remark that those of us from Scotland who have listened to this debate realize that re-afforestation is a vital and important policy. Those who live in the landward areas are much interested—and more than interested, concerned—to carry out a forestry policy. We realize that we have been set a very big task which must be spread over a number of years, and we realize from what has been said this afternoon that it will require very careful organization and a great deal of study and efficiency to reach this big target of afforestation. Some of us have come to the conclusion that in order to reach the target we must have a separate body to administer a proper afforestation scheme. It is said in the Report that we should have one authority, but although the Royal Forestry Society have supported the Report I do not think the decision come to is really representative. A great many land-owners are opposed to the idea of one authority and in favour of two. Some people have gone so far as to say that the second authority should be a completely independent Scottish Forestry Commission. I do not go so far as that. I feel that we should aim at a Scottish Forestry authority under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State for Scotland.
In the same way as the Secretary of State for Scotland is responsible for education and planning schemes, I think he should be responsible to Parliament for

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our afforestation schemes. I do not quite agree with my noble friend Lord Trent about having only one technical authority. I think that we should have two technical authorities. If we have two Ministers for afforestation, one in England and one in Scotland, then there should be a technical authority in England and a technical authority in Scotland. In the matter of agriculture we have our own technical authority, and I think, therefore, that we should have the same thing in the matter of afforestation. It seems to me that it would cause confusion if the Secretary of State for Scotland, whenever in dealing with forestry matters he had occasion to refer to a technical authority, should have to refer to some nonParliamentary body in England.
Many of us in Scotland feel that it is essential to have an afforestation authority of our own, for we are convinced that when the war is over the Houses of Parliament will be simply overwhelmed with work connected with the United Kingdom, with the Empire, with foreign countries and with the peace terms, and it seems inconceivable to us that matters like forestry administration could have time devoted to them by a Parliament so busily occupied with those other great issues. We feel that there must be some decentralization, some devolution in this matter, and we think that the right way to proceed would be for the Treasury or Parliament to allocate block grants to the Scottish Forestry authority in the same way as block grants have been allocated in other matters. We suggest that they should be allocated, and that the Scottish Forestry authority should be left to expend the money as and when they think right and best for the development of forestry in Scotland. I feel that it would be extremely unwise that we should be placed in the position of having to keep on submitting and referring questions to people in Whitehall; that would cause a block in the bottleneck at Whitehall. After all, if once we have approved an afforestation policy of 5,000,000 trees to be carried out over a period of years, and have agreed on the amount of money to be expended, when the money is allocated to Scotland it becomes a purely Scottish domestic question and concerns nobody else. Therefore, I feel that we should have two Ministries.
I know that it says in the Report that we should be treated nationally. I know
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that the object of having one Minister is to treat us nationally. We are treated nationally in regard to our religion, our law and justice, agriculture and education; why not therefore in the matter of afforestation too? I cannot see any argument against it. It has been argued that if you have one authority it would attract brains. I can assure your Lordships that the quality of the brains would be all right in Scotland. Out of eight speakers here to-day five come from Scotland. That shows the interest which we take in this subject. Then it is said that one authority would save wastage. If we had one department in Scotland you may be very sure that we should attend to the matter of wastage all right and sec that there was none. I feel very strongly, and there are many who feel strongly with me, that this scheme requires two authorities because the people of Scotland are not content to play the part of a dump-barge behind the stern of a steam tug.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, like many of your Lordships who have spoken to-day I felt very encouraged when I read this Report of the Forestry Commissioners and their proposals. I feel that this suggestion of dedication is probably a partial solution of the problem that exists. But I feel, also, that we have run into very great danger because if this dedication scheme is worked out more or less in the way in which it is envisaged it will carry with it certain obligations on the part of both parties and will inevitably, and, I think, quite correctly, mean supervision of the woodlands. As I see it it is right that that should be so, but I have fears about the method which may be adopted for supervising the management of woodland properties. By this time, we have all become more or less accustomed to war-time restrictions and regulations, and we do not, perhaps, think so much about them as we did. But we have had experience of the terrible complications and complexities that our administrative system has developed to carry out its business, and I should venture to suggest that in this matter which we are now discussing we might hope to see some simpler method of procedure, that we should try to aim at some method of guidance and over-all control, abandon-

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ing, so far as possible, our present complex and intricate machinery.
In saying this I do not mean to criticize or in any way to "crab" the action of the machinery suggested by the Forestry Commission. But I think a very important point to watch on the financial side of the matter as regards private woodlands is that the problem is not really properly dealt with by way of grants in aid of planting. I always have been of opinion that a great difficulty confronting woodland owners in this country between the two wars was connected with the price which it was possible to get even for well-grown English timber. I feel that a right solution of this trouble would be to have a long-term policy providing for stabilization of that price at something like a level which is productive. It seems to me that we could hope, with that aid, to reach a continuous cycle of production in each separate property and so get an annual income which, if on a continuous and regular basis, would meet outgoings and cover cost of planting from year to year. I feel that it would be an advantage if we could rely on that after the war, because accelerated fellings, the fellings of immature timber, have upset the natural cycle, and I think it is right and proper that some contribution should be made in order to allow owners to catch up and get back into their cycle again. It is rather like the war insurance contribution in a way. I think that owners of woodlands have suffered, I will not say from depredation, for that is perhaps a rather exaggerated term, but they have been put out of their stride in the management of woodland properties and it needs something to put them back.
Furthermore, we have the very difficult problem arising owing to the large areas which have been felled and which are now left unplanted. A great deal of that land is going to scrub and bracken and rubbish, because it is difficult to fence it. It is impossible to get wire and young trees for planting more than a very small proportion of what has now been cut, and that will mean extra expenditure per acre for immediate post-war necessities. I should like to urge that more attention should now be paid to replanting areas which have been cut. I feel that at this stage of the war it would hardly be proper to suggest that wire netting, labour and materials should be devoted to that pur-
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pose, but the position will give rise to a great deal of difficulty which we shall appreciate when we come to replant after the war and find a large acreage seriously overgrown with scrub, which will cost a great deal to clear. Nevertheless, I feel that this Report does show promise that the Forestry Commission at least hope that the forestry policy of the Government will be a serious and active one, and I feel that it is a good sign if this House is generally in agreement with what is proposed and will support the spirit of it, although no doubt before legal form is given to it many changes will be made.
LORD PHILLIMORE: My Lords, I think that we have had a most interesting debate. We might discuss this question for much longer still; it is a very much bigger question than may appear from the noble Duke's Motion. There are, after all, two principal parties concerned, and they are both very important: the State, with its State-owned forests, and the private woodland owner, with his private forests. Up to date it must be agreed that the private woodland owner has carried the burden. Now, I am sorry to say, he has had to carry the burden of two wars, with very little aid from anyone else, and with very little encouragement from anyone else, and least encouragement of all from the Government of the day. That being so, we must realize that facts are facts, and that the private landowner, although he has done his best for his country, will not be any better off for it at the end of the war, but will have lost, above all things, a factor which I have not heard referred to to-day: he will have lost his possibility of continuous yield, which is the only method by which, with a long-term investment like a forest, the owner can hope to recover an annual income. In losing that he has probably lost, unless he is a rich man, the possibility of carrying on his estate as a forest estate; and it is on this point that I am going to express a certain anxiety.
We have to-day the great advantage of a representative of the Forestry Commission sitting in this House, and I think I am right in quoting my noble friend Lord Radnor as saying that acquisition does not necessarily mean purchase. I have in mind the landowner who is at his wits' end to know what to do with his land, for financial or other reasons, and at the same time who does not want to split

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his estate up into bits. In my part of the world, and indeed over the greater part of England, as distinct from England and Wales, woods are not large, and woodland owners do not control large areas. I suppose those who control more than a thousand acres are quite a small number. If those woodlands are forcibly acquired—and I will come back to the question of forcible acquisition in a moment—it affects in many cases the entire administration of the estate. You may have an agent dealing with a thousand acres of woodlands as well as with farms and so on, and he may have enough to do and enough to justify a good salary; take away the woodlands, and the overheads at once become too heavy. You may be farming yourself, and during the summer-time you may use the labour that works in the forests all through the winter and autumn in hoeing and manual work of that kind on the farm; do away with the woodlands, and that secondary use for your staff has gone. To my mind, the most important thing which we have to consider is how to retain the composite estate which includes private woodlands as one of its principal sections.
As I have already said, my noble friend Lord Radnor has explained, to my great satisfaction, that acquisition of woodlands by the Forestry Commission does not necessarily imply their purchase. I had hoped to hear him add "or their lease for 999 years." Perhaps I may add that. But what powers are the Government to take, based on the recommendations in this Report? Are they going to take powers forcibly to acquire land which in their opinion is not being treated properly from the forestry point of view, or are they going to do what they will do by sheer persuasion, without the use of force? It is useless to say that they have had these compulsory powers up to now but have never used them. That is no answer; they may at any moment use them, and at any rate the powers are there for them to use. That does not satisfy me, and I think that this question of compulsion towards dedication, especially as regards the smaller properties, is one which will have to be most carefully considered. I am not yet satisfied that we have a satisfactory way of dealing with it in the Forestry Commission's Report.
There is only one other thing that I want to say, although we might talk for hours on this subject. I am sure it must
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be right that a considerable sum of money should be found for whoever is to do the planting immediately after this war. The picture which the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, drew of the deterioration of land where the trees have been cut and which is going back into brambles and so on is all too true, and this will add enormously to the expense of dealing with it, so that we must not put off dealing with it any longer than is strictly necessary. Therefore, even at the risk of its seeming not quite the thing to do in war-time, I would first of all ask the Government to consider whether they could not at once make available loans at low rates of interest. Whether they could go so far as actually to pay out the proposed subsidies I doubt, but I think that some people would be able to get on if the capital was found for them at a reasonable rate of interest. However, that is not a very big point; the biggest point of all is to ensure that when the war is over plenty of capital is in the hands of those who are going to do the planting.
My noble friend Lord Radnor has explained to us that, when the Forestry Commission propose that 25 per cent. of the annual costs should be recoverable from the Government, they include in those costs the initial planting. If that is correct—oddly enough it is not made very clear in the Forestry Commission's Report, or not clear to me, at any rate— it makes a vast difference. Whether it is adequate or not, or whether this is the way to do it or not, I do not much care at the moment to discuss, but obviously we must have that capital available immediately after the war. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who I am sorry to see has gone, wrote a letter to The Times the other day in which, in spite of the Bench which he occupies in this House and his predilections, he advocated a certain amount of capital being put at the disposal of industrialists at the end of the war. Your Lordships may have seen his letter on the subject in The Times. If it is necessary to think about that for industry, it is equally necessary, I submit, to think about it for forestry. We need have no hesitation in saying to the Government, "We are in an awkward place, because you have disrupted our woods and we have got less than we should otherwise have got for them. At the same time you have taken away our

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labour, and in consequence our woods are in a mess. Now you take powers to yourselves to take over these woods because they are in a mess. That does not seem just."
VISCOUNT COWDRAY: My Lords, I would like to add my tribute to the Forestry Commissioners for producing such a valuable and interesting Report. Indeed I feel that the information contained therein will in itself help considerably those woodland owners who wish to maintain their woods efficiently and on scientific lines. If, later on, I criticize some aspects of the Report, I should like to make it quite clear that I welcome the Report as a whole and I hope that the majority of its recommendations will come into force. The Report very naturally emphasizes the lack of planting in the prewar days, the harsh but necessary exploitation during the war, and the need at the end of the war, firstly, of conserving the few trees which may be left, and, secondly, of setting out to build a new store of timber. Whilst there are obvious objections to the continuation of felling licences, which I need not go into, I think that the case for their continuation is overwhelmingly strong, and I would only put in a plea that due regard be paid to the need for timber for estate purposes.
Of the five million acres suggested by the Commissioners they visualize that two million will be found from the three million acres of existing woodland, and that the balance will have to be obtained from rough pastures and the like, and I have noticed that this is a matter of some controversy. For myself I think that on balance there is a good case for planting up a small proportion of sheep pastures so long as the large areas of uneconomic scrub or useless underwood, which exist particularly in the south, are first dealt with. There is of course a great temptation to plant bare land first because the cost of clearing the scrub is often considerable. But if all our limited land is to be utilized to the best advantage this extra expense must be faced. Whilst they suggest that the greater portion of the new planting will have to be undertaken by the State, the Commissioners acknowledge in generous fashion the value of the contribution of private woodlands, and recommend that private enterprise in woodlands should be
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encouraged. I have no quarrel with any of these recommendations, and further I fully agree that it is essential that a certain degree of State control should be exercised over private woodlands, and, correspondingly, that it is natural and right that the owner of private woodlands, in carrying out the requirements of the State, should receive some financial assistance for so doing.
But the methods by which the Commissioners propose to carry out their policy regarding private woodlands with their scheme of dedication is, I venture to suggest, both cumbersome and unpractical, particularly in regard to the method—not the amount but the method—of granting financial assistance. Moreover, their sweeping dismissal of any idea of helping the small woodland owner, except with technical advice, is to my mind quite indefensible and, as Colonel Ropner points out in his Minority Report, quite inconsistent. If your Lordships will permit, I cannot do better than quote Colonel Ropner's own words:
"It is surely both inconsistent and unfair to the owners of 'small woods' to state, on the one hand, that their woods are uneconomic and of so little use to the nation that they can, in no circumstances, either receive financial assistance or be taken over by the State, but on the other hand to assert that 'small woods' will 'contain a reserve of timber which it is highly desirable to conserve,' and that they must therefore be subject to the provisions of a licensing system which will prevent owners from disposing of property the value of which has arisen from their unaided efforts."
So far as I can see, the Commissioners give no adequate reason for their desertion of the small woodland owner and I suggest that the real reason is that to give assistance to him would not fit conveniently into the cumbersome scheme of dedication which they have devised.
I do not wish to discuss the amount of the proposed financial assistance except to say in passing that it seems somewhat inadequate; but I submit that there are two serious objections to the proposed method whereby the financial assistance is to be in the form of a percentage of the annual deficit instead of, as heretofore, by grants on an acreage basis. The first objection is that to arrive at the annual deficit will require most elaborate accounting. To keep accounts for all the woods of any one estate would be a comparatively simple matter, and I agree that accounts in this limited form ought to

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be kept, but, as I understand it, certain amenity or small woods will necessarily be excluded from the scheme of dedication, and thus it appears that separate accounts are to be kept for different woodlands on the same estate. This immediately involves an elaborate system of costing, which most estate office staffs are not adequate to deal with. Moreover, an accurate allocation of costs or receipts as between the woods which are dedicated and the woods which are not—when they are often side by side—would sometimes prove difficult, and would certainly be open to abuse.
My second objection to the proposed method of financial assistance is in regard to the few woods that can be regarded as profitable woods at the end of the war. These will consist chiefly of young plantations planted in the years between the two wars, and too small to be of use to the nation during the present emergency. But no doubt there will also be a few lots of older timber that have been lucky enough to escape the ravages of the war. And I would also include in this category the chestnut coppice such as is grown on a large scale in Sussex on a ten to twelve years' rotation, which is a very valuable asset both to the nation and to its owners. I presume that the Commissioners propose to include at least the young plantations already in existence in their scheme of dedication, and certainly I think that some degree of State control ought to be exercised over these. But what the Commissioners seem to leave in the air is as to whether the receipts and expenses of these profitable woods are to be included in the calculation of the annual deficit. Probably they do intend that they should be so included; but if they are it seems to me that the financial assistance they propose would immediately become unjust. For those woodland owners who have not planted at all in the years prior to the war would get the full benefit of the proposed financial assistance, whereas those woodland owners who, patriotically or instinctively, had made large plantations before the war will not receive the full benefit of the assistance because such revenue as they may have coming in from those older woods will be set off against the annual deficit.
I have endeavoured to show the objections to the scheme of dedication, and all those objections, it seems to me, could
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be overcome if the existing system of grants, suitably increased, and State control, suitably strengthened, were retained. An annual maintenance grant also on an acreage basis would be helpful, and no doubt the amount of this grant would be taken into account in arriving at the amount of the original planting grant. I agree with the Commissioners that it would not be practicable to give a guaranteed price for mature timber because of the very long time before maturity is reached, but I thoroughly welcome their suggestion of a guaranteed price for thinnings. As an alternative to continuing the system of grants, the system of loans so ably advocated by my noble friend Lord Mansfield would have none of the objections I see in the scheme of dedication. Perhaps an option might be given for a grant or loan as has been done under the Housing Acts. I submit that the existing system of planting grants or a new system of loans, together with maintenance grants and a guaranteed price for thinnings, whilst being fair and acceptable to woodland owners, would achieve far better than the scheme of dedication the very worthy objectives of the Forestry Commission, with which we are all agreed. The required degree of State control over private woodlands would be in no way more difficult. The elaborate costings, that would be quite out of proportion to the overheads that most estates can afford to carry, would be avoided, and the case of the small woodland owners could be treated on its merits instead of being summarily dismissed simply because it did not fit into the main scheme.
THE MINISTER OF ECONOMIC WARFARE (THE EARL OF SELBORNE): My Lords, we are under a debt of gratitude to the noble Duke for having brought forward this subject to-day and for having introduced it in such an interesting and able speech. As on so many other subjects, your Lordships' House contains some of the greatest experts in the country on this particular problem, and it has been a great advantage to us to have the benefit of their advice this afternoon. When I spoke recently in your Lordships' House, in answer to my noble friend Lord Mansfield, I pointed out that the very valuable Report of the Forestry Commission did not commit His Majesty's Government in any way at all, that that Report was now under the Government's consideration, and that we are in the course

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of listening to representations made by those who have the right to be heard on this subject. If I may say so, nobody has a greater right to be heard on this matter than your Lordships' House, and therefore I confess I was a little bit surprised to hear the noble Duke, the Duke of Sutherland, demand that we should produce a forestry policy to-day. I do not think that could have been done without a grave discourtesy to your Lordships' House. I am sure that the debate we have had will be of great assistance to the Government in devising a permanent forestry policy for submission to Parliament. I would remind your Lordships also that there are other Committees whose reports we must await before a policy on forestry can be framed; I refer to the reports of the Hill Sheep Committees.
There is no division of opinion that a vigorous forestry policy will be necessary after the war. After the experience we have gone through in our lifetime nobody surely can be guilty of the folly of thinking, as some people thought in the last war, that this is a war to end wars. We cannot guarantee that there will be no more war in the world. So long as that danger exists, as it must exist, it is necessary for us who live on an island, and who are dependent on our coal measures for so much of our national strength, to provide sufficient forestry areas to keep the coal mines and the industries which are needed to wage war adequately supplied with timber, without imposing a strain upon our shipping, which will always be hard pressed in time of war. Therefore there can be no doubt, and there is no doubt, about the necessity of a vigorous forestry policy. I was glad to hear the noble Duke, the Duke of Buc-cleuch, and my noble friend Lord Trent point out that a vigorous forestry policy —as indeed the Forestry Commission themselves explain—means not merely the planting of acres, but also the fostering of those ancillary industries which will give a market for the products of forestry. What my noble friend Lord Trent said in this connexion was very much to the point. I do not myself believe that it will be possible to have a flourishing forestry industry in England, Scotland, and Wales unless we also take steps to see that there is a regular market at reasonable prices for the products and by-pro-
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ducts of that industry, especially for the thinnings.
The Report of the Commission, however, raises a number of important subsidiary issues, subordinate though they be to the main theme of the necessity for a great expansion of our forestry acreage. First there is the question of the rate at which forestry should be developed after the war. That, of course, is a matter in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is very closely concerned, and I know that he is giving it his most careful and sympathetic consideration. Then there is the question of what is to be the constitution of the body responsible for forestry. Should it be, as it is to-day and as the Report recommends, one body, or should it be, as some of our Scottish friends advocate, two bodies? I notice that our Scottish friends are not entirely agreed on this matter. The noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, if I understood him correctly, suggested that it would be better to have one body as at present, but that half its members should be Scotsmen, on the ground that half or more than half of the suitable acreage is in Scotland. He did not suggest, as far as I could make out, that half the cost of the forestry programme should be borne by Scotland. I gather that he considered that that privilege, as in so many other cases, was the privilege of English taxpayers.
Then there is the question of what the relationship of the forestry authority should be to His Majesty's Government and Parliament, whether in fact there should be any modification of the present somewhat detached relationship. In today's debate I think everyone in your Lordships' House who has spoken has expressed the opinion that the Forestry Commission should be brought into closer relation with a Minister of the Crown.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: Not all, I did not mention it.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I apologize if I have made a mistake, but I think the great majority of noble Lords expressed that opinion, and that seems to me to be an important matter. Then there is the further question of what the powers, coercive or persuasive, of the forestry authority should be in relation to the private owner. That, of course, is bound up intimately with the constitution of the

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authority and its relationship to the Government. On all these matters His Majesty's Government will have to make up their mind and will proceed to make up their mind directly those who are entitled to be heard have had an opportunity of laying their views before the Government. Thereafter the Government will submit their proposals to Parliament. I do not think I can promise that that will take place immediately, but I can promise that it will take place without any avoidable delay.
I would like to endorse the tributes that have been paid in the Report and in this debate to the private owners of woodlands. I think it is really important that the public should not have a false impression about that matter. As one noble Lord said, there does seem to be an idea abroad in certain quarters that private forestry has failed. Private forestry has only failed in the sense that the State utterly neglected it during the nineteenth century. But State forestry was much more neglected, and if it had not been for the private wood owners we should be without the timber that we are felling and using to-day. Practically the whole supply of the timber felled in this war and the last war has come from the private wood owners. Therefore I think we should be making a great mistake if we did not recognize the service that section of the community has rendered to the nation and try to make it easier for them to carry out their function in the future than in the past.
I do not believe you can carry on private forestry unless the private forester is given conditions under which he can make forestry pay. As has been pointed out, you have got to assure him of a market for his products. That, after all, is true of agriculture and it is true of other industries. If you want to promote an industry in this country—whether it be motor cars or optical glass or any other industry—for reasons of national security, you must take steps by one means or another to assure those who are engaged in that industry a reasonably secure and profitable market for the produce of their industry. The same is true of forestry. If the conditions under which forestry can be made to pay can be given by the State I believe the private woodland owner will be as capable of carrying it out as he is capable of running
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agriculture or any other business. I think the figures that the noble Duke, the Duke of Buccleuch, gave, that in the interval between the two wars the State has paid nearly five times in overhead charges for State forestry what it has paid in grants for private forestry, are figures that should be noted by the public.
I should like to close by repeating that the Government and Parliament are indebted to the Commission for the very able and interesting Report which they have produced and in which Sir Roy Robinson, who by the way is not a civil servant at all, has played such a very notable part. We shall continue to give this Report our very careful consideration, and we shall be greatly assisted in that task by the comments we have received from your Lordships this afternoon.
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: My Lords, before withdrawing my Motion I would like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, very much for the interesting statement he has made on behalf of the Government. I do hope he will impress on His Majesty's Government the necessity for deciding soon upon a post-war forestry policy. That is all the more necessary now that the war seems likely to come to an end sooner than was at one time anticipated. I hope that in saying that I am not indulging in an undue complacency. I do hope therefore that the Government will come to a decision and let us know what that decision is as soon as possible. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, there are very few remarks I should like to make beyond stating that I have no intention of pressing my Motion. I said not that the Chairman of the Forestry Commission was a civil servant but that I do not consider as a rule that the Civil Service is a suitable breeding ground for chairmen. The fact that Sir Roy Robinson has been very successful is in my submission not due to his having been a civil servant but despite that. I wish to express my complete agreement with what was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Cowdray, particularly about keeping accounts, and I would like to say that the bias which the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, suggested was merely a suggestion, as borne out by the noble Earl's reply, that it is not fair to expect the woodland

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owner to replant and extend his woodlands more or less under compulsion unless he can be assured that it is not done at a loss. I thank the noble Earl for his very sympathetic reply.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

PERSONAL EXPLANATION BY VISCOUNT CRANBORNE.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil): My Lords, I beg the leave of the House to make a personal explanation. I feel that such an explanation is due from me to your Lordships. It seems that there may be some misunderstanding with regard to some words of mine in the debate yesterday on Lord Davies's Motion on the Bermuda Conference. I used the following words in the course of my reply: "Jews are to be associated with it," that is to say, with the Inter-Governmental Committee for Refugees. My words must not of course be held to anticipate a decision which must be reserved to the Committee itself. The association and its precise nature are obviously, matters for the Committee itself to determine. His Majesty's Government cannot commit the other members of the Executive Committee, although, of course, it arises from the very nature of that Committee that it will exclude from its consideration no aspect of the refugee problem and no responsible representations that might be made to it. I thought it proper to make this explanation to your Lordships.

PERTH ROYAL INFIRMARY.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD THE EARL OF MANSFIELD asked His Majesty's Government whether they are aware that a licence to build an isolation extension to the maternity ward at Perth Royal Infirmary has been refused to the directors of the infirmary; and whether this decision can be reversed, in view of the urgent need for this accommodation for potentially infectious and other difficult cases.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the question which I have put on the Paper is one which, although of only local importance, is of great importance locally. The maternity department at Perth Royal Infirmary has in the course of the last few years almost
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doubled its clientele, and it is badly in need of extension although we cannot expect to get that extension until after the war. It is, however, a matter of the most extreme urgency that we should get an isolation ward for potentially infectious or other difficult maternity cases. I use the words "potentially infectious" because once a case is actually infectious it can be removed to the fever hospital, but if the period of doubt lasts several days the position is very difficult, particularly in cases of eclampsia in which complete rest should be given. At present the directors of the Royal Infirmary have no such accommodation and are unable to provide it. They have been refused a licence to build the necessary accommodation, although bricks and cement can be obtained locally and very little extra material would be needed. They have the added grievance that a day nursery set up in Perth shortly after the war is now being greatly extended, in order doubtless to enable mothers to deposit their children there and go to war work. As, however, the amount of such work in Perth is very limited that does not seem necessary, and efforts might be much better employed in building an isolation ward. That is not merely the opinion of the directors of the infirmary but of the medical staff, the gynaecologists, the medical officers of health for both the city and the county, of the Town Council of Perth and of the County Council. I hope therefore that I may be given a favourable reply.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, the extension of the maternity ward has been discussed between representatives of the infirmary, the local authorities and the Department of Health for Scotland. To provide a speedier alternative to building and to conserve labour and materials the Department offered to place certain existing beds at the directors' disposal. This offer remains open and the Department hope shortly to be able to discuss with the local authorities other proposals for meeting the shortage of maternity beds in this area.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. It is difficult to ask any supplementary in view of the end of that reply, but may I ask if it is realized that unless accommodation is provided neither the directors of the Royal Infirmary nor the local authorities concerned can take any responsibility for what may occur?
LORD SNELL: My Lords, I will report the noble Earl's remarks to the proper quarter, but the reply at the moment is that no immediate building can take place because of shortage of labour.

UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE (DETERMINATION OF NEED AND ASSESSMENT OF NEEDS) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS, 1943.
Draft Special Order, dated 29th July, 1943, made by the Minister of Labour and National Service under Sections 38 and 52 of the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1934:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

SUPPLEMENTARY PENSIONS (DETERMINATION OF NEED AND ASSESSMENT OF NEEDS) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS, 1943.
Draft Special Order, dated 29th July, 1943, made by the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland, acting in conjunction under Part II of the Old Age and Widows' Pensions' Act, 1940:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Third Report by the Select Committee made, and to be printed.
House adjourned.