A system which practically allows the individuals interested to fix the amounts which they shall pay the government for its timber naturally meets with the unqualified approval of the lumbermen. I therefore expected that they would strenuously object to the proposed change in law. To my surprise there was no complaint while it was pending before the commission, which passed it.
Then, and only then, I learned that certain lumbermen had quietly done their work where they believed, rightly, that it would be effective, and that the bill would not pass the assembly. An effective lobby, headed by a Filipino representative of the largest Filipino lumbering concern in the islands, had been organized against it, and so a measure having no other object or effect than to prevent frauds on the government and increase its revenue, was killed, for the time at least, consideration of the bill being “deferred,” by the assembly, with the result that a large number of foreign mill owners will be allowed to continue to make an illegitimate profit, and a very limited number of Filipino mill owners will do the same.
The commercial outlook for the Philippine lumber industry is very encouraging. No more greedy lumber market exists than Manila has offered during the past few years, this condition being due primarily to the stimulus given to all lines of industrial development by the economic policy of the insular administration.
Prices are high, and the supply is still unequal to the local demand. Forest products to the value of $696,407 were last year imported into the Philippines when we should have exported them in large quantities. A lumber company properly equipped and managed, and operating on a suitable tract, can place lumber in its Manila yards at a cost of half or even less than half the price at which the same lumber readily sells. The export trade, which should be very profitable, has as yet scarcely been inaugurated. Tan bark, dyewoods, valuable gums and rattans find a ready sale. It may reasonably be expected that the world’s demand for forest products of all kinds will increase as the years go by, and that the resources of older countries will become depleted, or at least inadequate to supply steadily growing needs. Forest growth in the Philippines is rapid, and under suitable conservation methods reforestation comes about quickly. With continued enforcement of existing law, and with adequate supervision over cutting and reforestation, the cost of which should be paid by the lumber industry itself, the forests of the islands should become an important permanent source of revenue and wealth. Filipinos ought to become holders of forest concessions instead of labourers on the concessions of others. Whether any considerable number of them will care to do so remains to be seen, but at all events their forests should be conserved, so that the opportunity may be ever before them. At the present time caiñgin makers destroy far more timber in the course of a year than lumbermen use.
In the hope of awakening an interest among Filipinos in forest conservation and development, and of being able to train an adequate Filipino working force, a forest school has been started at Los Baños, in the immediate vicinity of one of our forest reserves, where practical instruction can advantageously be given. It is anticipated that the graduates of this school will be of great use in bringing about a radical change in the attitude of the Filipinos toward forest conservation.
It is an astonishing fact that the Bontoc and Lepanto Igorots have been the only ones of the very numerous Philippine peoples to see for themselves the benefits derivable from forest conservation.
When I first visited their country I noted that all the trees in certain pine forests were carefully trimmed of their lower branches, and on inquiry found that trees might not be felled until they reached a certain size, although branches might be cut for firewood. The prevention of fires, which are very destructive in pine forests, and the care of young trees, were also adequately provided for! The Bureau of Forestry now employs Igorots as fire wardens in Benguet and Bontoc.
If the policy were adopted of appropriating annually an amount equivalent to sixty per cent of the forest revenues for the work of the Bureau of Forestry, the proper conservation and development of the great potential source of wealth intrusted to that bureau would be adequately provided for. The commission has agreed to such an arrangement; ten per cent of the total forest revenues to be expended in the provinces under its exclusive legislative control, and fifty per cent in the other provinces. Appropriations for the territory occupied by non-Christians are now made on this basis. No appropriation bill has been passed by the assembly since this policy was agreed to by the commission. It remains to be seen whether the former body will favour the expenditures necessary to support the work of forest conservation and development, with the reasonable certainty that such work will not only assure to them and to coming generations a permanent source of wealth, but will more than pay for itself in dollars and cents.