I. The Forest Legislation.

Public attention was recently called to the very important question of the Conservation and Management of the New Zealand State Forests, when it was remarked that the evils arising from past and present reckless waste and destruction of timber demonstrate and urge the necessity for new legislation in the matter.

It may be approximately calculated that the consumption of timber, together with its reckless waste and destruction, is now approaching the round figure of 200,000,000 of superficial feet yearly. The out-turn of the saw-mills for the year 1876 amounted to about 150,000,000 super-ficial feet of sawn timber, to which quantity should be added the destruction by bush-fires, etc., etc. Should such consumption and destruction be on the increase at the same rate as the population, and should the present far niente in the matter continue, the timbered State Forests of the colony could hardly last more than fifty years.

Although it is obvious that a new, fundamental, and permanent forest legislation should be of considerable interest here, at the same time it does not appear that the question has attained sufficient maturity to be tabled in page 6 Parliament, there being no immediate danger—no periculum in domo requiring hasty measures. Moreover, the measures to be taken at present are entirely pertinent to the adminstration.

The question of the State Forests in New Zealand is a broad one, bearing as much on considerations of political economy as on technical forestry; and the statesman who will have the honor to attach his name to it will feel the necessity of showing that extensive and immediate advantages are to be derived from his proposals when submitting them to Parliament.

It must be admitted that people are generally but imperfectly acquainted with matters of State Forestry; still, those people who, by their energy., and industry, are the founders of the prosperity of the colony, have their representatives in Parliament whose duty it is to study such questions as involve the welfare of the public property.