What the result would be were all restraint withdrawn, and were the Filipinos permitted to destroy their forest resources at will, may easily be inferred from what has happened in the past, as well as from the difficulties encountered in enforcing the present law. Cebú, the most thickly populated large island in the archipelago, is already practically deforested, and until recently many other islands have been rapidly approaching the same unfortunate condition.
Under conservative forest management the existing annual output of lumber might be increased fivefold and the unfortunate results from reckless cutting, which have so frequently occurred in the past and which not infrequently still occur, might be completely avoided.
If these very desirable ends are to be attained, the force employed by the Bureau of Forestry must be materially augmented. It has been conclusively demonstrated that every increase in the number of its employees is promptly followed by a sufficient increase in the insular revenues derived from forest products to more than offset the expense involved in the payment of the additional salaries and travel expenses. For every extra peso that the government expends in this way it takes in about two, and if this can be done, and the enormous forest resources of the islands developed and conserved at the same time, there ought to be no trouble in securing the necessary legislation.
I long endeavoured to bring about the establishment of a fixed relationship between the amount annually collected on forest products and the amount allotted for the work of the Bureau of Forestry. Obviously the working force of the bureau must be increased as the lumber industry develops, or adequate supervision cannot be exercised.
Increasing the working force of the bureau makes possible investigations which stimulate the development of the lumber industry, and lead to a largely increased output.
The collection of revenue on forest products from government lands is made by the Bureau of Internal Revenue under the general supervision of the secretary of finance and justice. I have recently learned, to my amazement, that every large sawmill owner in the islands is allowed to make the statement of the output of his mill upon which collections are based; a procedure very like allowing importers to assess their own customs dues. The inevitable result is that the government is robbed right and left. Finding that an attempt was made to justify this procedure on the ground that it was impracticable to have lumber measured at the mills, as the Bureau of Internal Revenue has not sufficient employees for this purpose, I endeavoured to remedy this extraordinary situation.
Under existing law, timber may be measured in the round, in the square, or after it has been manufactured into lumber. Measurement in the round is quick and simple, and it has the further advantage that loss due to wasteful sawing falls on the lumberman, while if the sawed lumber only is measured such loss falls on the government. I therefore drafted and submitted to the commission a law providing that all timber should be measured in the round, with proper allowance for defects. Had the law passed, I could have had employees of the Bureau of Forestry measure the logs brought into each of the several mills which collectively turn out ninety per cent of the sawn lumber of the islands, and so could have effectively prevented frauds upon the government.
An Old-style Culvert.
Many a good horse has been killed by breaking through a structure like this.