3 i
ai

1

— —

Continued

Green Gold

for the Peace

million buildings have been ut-
terly destroyed to date. When
we consider that hundreds of
cities in Russia as well have to
be rebuilt, we see clearly that
-Hurope cannot repair its dam-
age from its own material re-
Sources im any
length of time. The resources
of this country must be drawn
upon to a large extent if world
misery and economic disaster
are to be avoided.”

Nearer at home, in Vancou-
ver, the daily press has carried
revealing: accounts | of housins-
conditions. .

One such account, in the
Vancouver Daily -Proyince, un-
der the heading: “Cabin’s Filth
Apalling,” states: “I am highly

reasonable

indignant that human beings —

should be allowed to inhabit
such places,” said Coroner Doc-
tox John D. Whitbread after he
had been called by City Police
late Friday night to a cabin in
the 200 block East Georgia. . -
Wiken police arrived on the
Scene they found a body rest-
ing on a dilapidated and ver-
min infested mattress in the
corner. From information giv-
“en police, the woman, bed-rid-
den for about a month, died of
ttuberculosis. When advised of
the unsanitary conditions of
the premises, officials of the
Public Health Service posted a
Sign prohibiting the occupation
of the premises.”

_ Im concluding, the account
disclosed this incredible infor-
mation: “Almost every month
police are called to such cabins

where bodies are found, many —

having been there for days. In
every instance police state the
conditions are appalling.”

“ Another account, in the Van-
couver News-Herald under the
heading “Six Sleeping in one
Bed; Jury Condemns Family
Iivying Quarters at Baby Death
Probe,” tells of a dead two
months’ old baby boy, who
would not have died had it had

proper food and care; of two

parents and five children liv-
ing in a filthy, vermin infested,
foul smelling room unfit for
animals: of six of them sleep-
ine in one bed” in a strong
Tider added to the jury’s ver-
dict in an inquest held into the
death of tthe infant
William and Emily Ilavallee,
1537 West Third Avenue.

These and thousands of simi-
lar tragic cases are not con-
fined to Vancouver alone. In-
dicative of how grave our own
housing problem is right here
in Canada, is the recent report
of the Sub-Committee on
Housing and Planning of the
Federal Advisory Committee
on Reconstruction, which found

“The committee estimates
that the minimum housing need
in the postwar period will call
for a special program of fty
thousand to one hundred thous-
and units in ithe first postwar
year, and of seven ‘hundred
thousand in the first 10 years.”

This report of a government

committee presents what it
terms “a minimum housing
program” for Canada during

the years immediately follow-
ing the war; the provision of

son of

housing being regarded as a
strategie element inya full em-
ployment policy, and as a
basic factor in» the national
standard of living:

We must challenge these prob-
lems in the same way in
which our armed forces at the
fighting fronts
enemy today. It will require a
bold national program, states-
man-like leadership and the full
cooperation of labor, manage-
ment and government to develop
policies based squarely upon the
needs of the Canadian people
and the experiences of the war,
carried through in the spirit of
crusades. 5

As Maurice W. Wilson, presi-

* dent of the Royal Bank of Can-

ada, in presenting: his report to
the annual meeting of the share-
holders of the Royal Bank last
January stated:

“TJ personally believe that
large outright gifts of food,
raw materials, finished goods
and machinery to backward
and devastated countries will
in the long run, and even from
the most selfish point of view,
not only contribute most to
human welfare, but both in
the short and long run be in
the best interests of those
nations which ean afford to
make the gifts. :

“Tf this is teo much to ex-
pect of human beings in their
present stage of development,
the alternative must be loans
on a very large scale on long

' and easy terms, or probably a

combination of both loans and
gifts. I think such loans would
have to be te governments, be-
cause the management of an
International fund presum-
ably under the control of the
great powers could hardly ex-
pect to decide on the merits
of individual applicants, and,
even if they did, would doubt-
less in due course be accused
of attempting to influence in-
ternal business policies or
trends.”

Wilson is right, for the Unit-
ed Nations and that includes
Canada and each one of us, can,
and must, grapple with the
postwar problems in the same
way in which we are grappling
with the economic problems of
this war. =

iB addition to filling urgent re-

quirements of the Canadian!

people and the almost unlimit-
ed demands of the devastated
areas, the people of British Co-
lumbia must concern themselves
with the careful conservation of
rapidly diminishing lumber re-
sources.

Forest products account for
48 per cent of British Colum-
bia’s trade and 40 cents of every
dollar of primary products. The
lumbering industry provides a
payroll of 40,000 employees and
yet today the end of accessible
forests is already in sight, ac-
cording to government state-
ment.

The chief forester of British
Columbia recently estimated be-
fore the Sloan Commission that
approximately one-third of our

challenge the *

NIGEL MORGAN

forest lands are in young pro-
ductive timber, one-third in ma-
ture timber and one-third de-
nuded. We also estimated that
about one-half of the sound

wood cut in the forests is left on
the ground. On the average,

only 80 per cent of what later
goes into the mill is used and
some mills, he stated, had a
waste of up to 40 per cent. This

means that for every foot of
lumber produced, we use two
and a half feet of tree.

Obviously, British Columbia’s
interests call for immediate
measures to put an end to such
wasteful and destructive meth-
ods of production. Past policies
of “cut out and get out”? must be
eliminated. “Farming” of for-
est lands must be substituted for
“mining” of forest lands. The
appropriation- of sufficient
funds for seedine and planting
of denuded forest areas must
be guaranteed so that as fast
as possible, adequate refores-
tation can be provided to the
thousands of acres of barren,
cut over, burnt out land.

(pODAt the forestry depart-
ment estimates British Co-
lumbia is cutting one-third more
timber than it is growing. Ob-
viously, if there is to be any fu-
ture for our great lumber in-
dustry, there must be a vast ex-
pansion of our forest planning
and conservation programs.

Enactment. of legislation is
also required to enable the pro-
vineial department of lands and
agriculture to enter into coop-
erative agreements with private
forest owners to pool govern-
ment and private forest re-
sources in general for sustained
yield operations under provi-
sions which will give full pro-
tection to the public interests.

Our forests must become
models of practical and scien-
tific management and the ques-
tion of finding the practical
means of getting greater or
more intensified utilization of
forest products with the devel-
opment of our manufacturing
processes must be undertaken.

In connection with this article
is presented a graph prepared
by the Bureau of Economics and
Statistics, indicating the num-
ber of man days of direct em-
ployment provided in manufac-
turing one thousand f.bm. of
standing timber into the yari-
ous exportable forest products.
This illustration indicates the
importance of this question.

The two extremes it depicts
are interesting. The export of
logs provides only one man day
of employment in each thousand
f.b.m. of timber cut in the
woods. On the other hand the
export of cabinet work provides

19 man days of employment for
the same amount of forest de-

pletion.

The difference between two
and four man days for the ex-
port of rough, green lumber,
and newsprint has a great deal
of significance for B.C., since
both contribute largely to this
provinee’s wood products. —

BEFORE the war, British Co-
lumbia exported a consider-
able number of cedar logs and
“Jap squares” to Japan for re-

-manutacture.

The Japanese went much fur-
ther in the remanufacture of
British Columbia’s forest re-
sources. They saved the saw-
dust from cuttings off the “Jap
squares,” mixed it with ground
bark from cedar logs, added pu-
mice and sent the product back
to B.C. as hand cleanser. The
practicability of such a degree
of secondary production may be
questioned here, but it is an in-
teresting: illustration.

British Columbia burns and
blasts its tree stumps. In the
Scandinavian countries they dis-
till lubricating oils from their
stumps. Hrom its forests Swe-
den is not only getting wood
tars which its scientists convert
into lubricants, but it is getting
producer gas to drive 25 per
cent of its motors; fuel for its
blast furnaces and heavy indus-
tries, wood alcohol enough to
drive ambulances, fire engines
and police cars, soap and many
other substitues; including, yes,
even fodder for the horse and
cow. :

A THOROUGH investigation of
University of Idaho has been
carrying out extensive experi-
ments in plastic manufactures
to recover some of the 76 per
cent waste of our forest prod-
ucts. A new plastic which he
has developed from forest prod-
uct waste has a tensile strength
of nine thousand pounds per
Square inch. It is resistant to
moisture and action of acids. —

Right here in B.C., Doctor
Leslie L. Schaeffer in the lab-
oratory of the Pacific Yeneer
Company at New Westminster,

has succeeded in impregnating

birch wood with a resin com=
pound so successfully that B.G.
soft woods are now being con-
verted to hard woods. Western
white birch veneers impregnat-
ed with phenol formaldehyde
resinoid and submitted to heat
under high pressure has deyel-
oped a wood plastic alloy with
greatly increased strength and
high dimensional stability.

In the United States, plastics
are being developed as smooth
and hard as glass, as tough as
mild steel, and on a weight
basis lighter than aluminum by
the same process. Development
of such an industry opens up
possibilities for the complete re-
volutionizing of practically all
equipment and devices and 4
progressive development for
man comparable to that which
came’ with the manufacture of
iron and steel products.

Perhaps the greatest field
that can be opened up for our
forests is that of chemistry,. for
wood is chemically rich in po-
tentialities:
one of the world’s most import-

ant manufacturing raw ma-—

terials, particularly in the tex-
tile field. Cotton is a competi-
tor of wood, but the ehemist is
waging a stout battle for wood.

Cellulose is today -

Wood flour can be obtained £
the manufacture of lmoleum, d
namite, “wall board, masoni
as well as the possibility of w

_ lization of pulp mill waste, nea

ly 50 per cent of the tree, whi
could be developed into pulp
quor. British Columbia can ai
should enter into every field
plastic manufacture, whi
means that extensive resear
work similar to that being ec
ducted by the Powell River Go;
pany Limited must be unde
taken, and even extended.

Poets Robert Hardin of ¢

the present and future x
tentialities of this great 40,0¢
man industry must be compl:
ed as rapidly as possible. ©
forest resources must be pi
served as a perpetual source
taw material for our domes
needs and exports. We mi
formulate a well defined, «
ordinated ,practical program {
the development of this,

greatest natural resource, in

way that will provide _lasti
benefits for several times
present population.

Obviously we have the ,
Sources; we have the facilit
and we have the manpow
They must not be allowed
remain idle. There is no qui
won that the decision of #
majority of the Ganadi
people, those at the fishti
fronts, as well as those w
haye ‘contributed on the prody
tion front, is denitely for int:
national cooperation.

This issue must be ‘;
Squarely before the Ganadi
people without confusion. Ik
lationism and defeatism me
only preparation for anoth
and worse catastrophe. The ¢
tire prospect for full empk
ment, for a world in wh
peate, security and freed
are assured to all people, ,
pends unon our individual <=
collective interest in the #
fillment of this program. 7
if We are not interested im.
own welfare. how can we .
pect anyone else to be?

The prospects of fulfill
this program for postwar pr
perity, full employment, pe:
and security cannot be sep
ated from the question of w
kind of a parliament we el
to carry it out. Labor eannot
indifferent to the danger
electing an  administrati
which from defeatist and :
lationist bias, will nullify ©
chances, just as today i
sneer at the historic impe
ance of Teheran. z

The major task facmpe-
is the adoption and practice
wise measures, not only. :
tthe welfare of the forests, |
also of the 40,000 lumber wo!
ers who log them, saw th
and process tthem for the 1
and happiness of man. 3

ae

During this war, the lumb.
jacks in the B:G. woods hi
turned our green timbers i
“fighting forests” for the Ur
ed Nations. After this w
with our brothers from
fighting fronts, we want, 2
expect, to participate im ~

fullest possible -expansion
human wellbeing.