AFFORESTATION AND EMPLOYMENT
By SIR FRANCIS ACLAND, M.P.
THE starting of a special forestry effort in or near the Special Areas of Unemployment is a plain talc. All concerned happen to be Commissioners, and each has behaved strictly after his kind—the Commissioner for the Special Areas anxious to get work for the men in his charge in every way he could, the Forestry • Commis- " sioners anxious to help, but not wanting to have their normal work and resources diverted too much into the Special Areas ; and the Lords Commissioners of His - Majesty's Treasury very naturally cautious, exploratory, • but finally helpful, though not willing to commit them- , selves too far.
Let us then begin with a few figures to give scale. The Forestry Commission has .been working for fifteen yearS, acquiring during the period nearly a million acres of land of which rather more than half is plantable (an area the size of Warwickshire), and planting up to date 500 million trees on rather more than half of it (area larger than Middlesex), at a rate which went up to nearly 25,000 acres a year at one time, but is now a little over 20,000 (10 Hyde Parks) ; and it has spent about £600,000 a year. _Land has cost altogether under a million, at under £3 5s. per plantable acre, and the all-in cost of establishing a crop, including cost of land, is about £12 10s. an acre. The number of men normally employed varies from three to four thousand, of whom over 1.250 have forest workers' holdings..
Well then, in the summer before last four special areas were- investigated; and the investigators dealt with the possibility of helping these areas by afforestation in . rather different ways. The Scottish investigator did not .• mention it, perhaps because there is not much that can be usefully done in or near the distressed districts; Captain Euan Wallace, for Durham, was very cautious, referring to the very large areas that would be required to settle any substantial number of men ; Mr. .Davidson, for Cumberland, was more hopeful, referring to the great scope for extra forestry work in the area ; and Sir Wyndham Portal, for South Wales, recommended that the Forestry Commission be asked' to prepare a scheme for which .a grant should be given them if it seemed to be practical. The Commissioner who was appointed (Mr. Malcolm Stewart) could only say in his first Report of last summer that though he had conferred with the Chairman of the Forestry Commission, there had been no results up to date. But then things began to move, and in his second Report., published this month, Mr. Stewart . reported that the Forestry Commission, having made a survey, found that they ought to be able to plant 200,000 acres in, or within. 15 miles of, the Special Areas in ten years if they could acquire the land. This would- employ 2,200 persons, of whom 1,000 could he permanently settled in holdings, 70 per cent, of them being drawn from the industrial districts in the Special Areas. A special grant (he said) should be mode to the Forestry . Commission, and. if they needed compulsory 'powers to obtain the necessary land, he would use those which he was given in the Special Areas Act. He recommended this scheme. This leads to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's state- - ment last week and to answers given in the House Df Commons on Tuesday : Mr: Stewart's scheme had been agreed on in principle and the Forestry Commissioners had been authorised to proceed with the first instalment • of it, which might mean additional grants to the Forestry Fund of t1,650,000, to be spread over an unstated period. 'Their grant-in-aid for the next financial year would be -increased • by £200,000 in respect of the Special Areas, and the Treasury would be prepared to. consider grantt of £350,000 in the second and third. years. Thus , a • real beginning. is to be made, and -reconsideration late!` on in the light of progress- is indicated. This is not unreasonable in the circumstances, but a point may be repeated, which was made in the Report which led to the Forestry Commission being set up, that it will do as much harm to the Forestry Commission to be pulled up every few years to see how it is getting on as if one were to pull up the trees it planted. If the best work is to be done, the Commission must know • what they will have to provide - for five years -ahead.
These are rather dry hones; and we come to the areas in which the work will have to. he done. In the North of England it includes all Durham and Cumberland, which meet for a few miles on the Pennines; and to the North, Northumberland up to the valleys of the Rede and Coquet, and to the Smith all the Lakes (here we 'shudder) 'and- the north of Westmorland. sweeping eastwards by Kirkby Stephen and including Swaledale, 'but not the Cleveland Hills in North Yorkshire. • This area clearly includes some first-rate planting land, the largest blocks of which, already partly acquired, are in or near the North Tyne Valley, and there is- plenty molt, 'even excluding entirely the heart of the Lake country, further West. In South Wales the area is smaller. It -covers all Glamorgan and nearly all Monmouth, a. strip along the South-West of Carmarthenshire, and all Brecon except the north, and it 'seems probable that it will be -mainly in the north of the area that large-scale work will be possible.
Some account may be- useful of forest- workers'holdings.: They are essentially the Forestry Commission's. contri•-• 'bution to . a well-known smallholding 'problem. On almost all upland grass-land the area required to make a holding economic is too much for a man- and his family to look after. The holder must have employment? preferably winter-employment, elsewhere. Thus Northern 'Ireland used to be helped by fishing and by Glasgow, and thus slate-quarrying helped North Wales. On a forest worker's holding, a piece of -grass-land averaging ten acres below the forest slopes: the holder is guaranteed 150 days' employment in the year He usually work's in the forest more than this, sometimes full time, and though the life occasionally does not snit Men, or it may be their wives, the holders have- undoubtedly made good, as is-shown by the fact that. starting trim nothing. they now own £-15,000 worth of livestoek.
In general it may be said-that no technical or financial difficulty now stands in • the way of . beginning really useful work. But everything depends. on getting the right sort of land, and getting it quickly and if possible without using compulsion. The .sort of land in question ;will be what the Commission ordinarily buy at about £3 per . plantable acre or take. on long lease at about 3s. That is its estimated forestry value, and it ought not to be expected that more will be paid because of the importance of the work as a piece of national policy.
The Commissioners are arranging Conferences in the near. future, both in South Wales and in the North, to which landowners and others interested will be invited. It', following. on this, some of them will offer suitable land in sufficiently large blocks at a fair price, much good will be done. A good start is very important.
Previous page
