MORE AID FOR

FORESTRY

£20,000,000 IN FIVE

YEARS

WESTMINSTER, FRIDAY

Mr. Williams, Minister of Agriculture, announced to-day that Parliament will be asked to replenish the Forestry Fund during the five financial years 1946-50 by a total sum of £20,000,000.

That should provide, Mr. WILLIAMS said, for the afforestation and replanting of 365,000 acres. In the Government's view this programme was not likely to cause any serious conflict between the claims of forestry -and of agriculture. Regard would be had, both in timing and location, to the state of employment and the Government's general policy on employment. The Government had accepted the dedication scheme propounded by the Forestry Commissioners, under which owners of private woodlands, in return for stated scales of State assistance, undertook to manage, and to continue to manage, their woodlands in an approved way.

HOME TIMBER SUPPLY

FROM OUR PARLIAMENTARY CORRESPONDENT

Although the Government have not yet committed themselves to accept the whole ambitious programme of post-war forest policy proposed by the Forestry Commission in 1943, Mr. Williams's statement yesterday authorizes a start substantially on the scale proposed in the next five years.

The £20,000,000 to be made available for the purpose between 1946 and 1950 is just about double the amount voted by Parliament for forestry in 20 years before the war. This marks the importance now attached by the Government to a big expansion of. home timber resources. Heavy war.time felling, to reduce imports, is estimated to have released 17,500,000 tons of shipping space during the war. If the Forestry Commission's objective of securing a forest area of 5,000,000 acres in 50 years is achieved, provision would be made-when the forests and woodlands are fully productive-to meet about one-third of the country's normal timber requirements.

The Govemment's adoption of the dedication scheme for. private woodlands marks the acceptance in full of an important part of the long-term policy. The scheme agreed upon last year at a conference of interested bodies started from the basis that all woodlands judged to be suitable and necessary for timber production should be either dedicated to that purpose by the owner or acquired by the State. The Forestry Commission proposed that the State should pay the owners of dedicated woodlands 25 per cent. of the net expenditure until the woodlands are self-supporting.

At the conference referred to an alternative basis of State help was agreed as an option open to the owner. This provides for a planting grant of £7 lOs. an acre for every acre planted or replanted; loans with reference to individual circumstances; a maintenance grant for 15 years of 2s. 6d. an acre per annum on every acre planted and properly. maintained; and a maintenance grant for 15 years of 2s. 6d. an acre on all productive woodlands other than new plantations. The grants are to be revised after five years on the basis of ascertained costs.

FORESTRY COMMISSION

The Forestry Commissioners, in preparation for their...