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Show PINCHOT j yfEWS Says Removal of Tariff on Lumber Would Not Reduce Price Washington. March 11. A removal of the tariff on lumber would neither reduce the price to the consumer, nor preserve our forests, according to tho opinion expressed by GIfford Plnchot, chief of the United States forest service ser-vice in a lettar to Berano E. Payne, chairman' of the house ways and ; means committee made public to-i to-i night Mr. Pinchot holds that the fundamental funda-mental question Is forest conservation. "There Is only ono way to save our forests," he said. "That Is to see that Jthey are kept at work growing new crops of tlmbOr as the old are cut away." Mr. Plnchot says that most or tho lumber we now "import comes from Canada, as most of It would if the duty were taken off. We are now Importing Import-ing frnm Canada only about 2 per cont as much lumber as we are cutting from our own forests. It is not likely that under free lumber, more than 5 per cent as much would come from Canada as we would cut at home. Canada, as compared with the United States, has not a great timber supply. Her total amount of standing timber Is probably not more than one-third of what Is the amount of ours. In the end, the Canadians will undoubtedly require for home use all the timber they can produce. Imports from Canada Can-ada therefore would not be enough to eliminate the cutting of our forests or to reduce the price of lumber in any important degree." The waste in logging, according to Mr. Plnchot, Is already enormous, being be-ing several times larger than our Importation Im-portation from Canada. The chief forester thinks It "highly Important that we hhould have free pulp wood In the future as In the past, and that Canada should Impose no ex,-poK ex,-poK duty upon pulp -wood; In-this-rer-spect, he continues; "The pulp and papor-making Industry' is in a, different position from the other great wood-usiug wood-usiug industries of the United States. The latter can .bo supplied wholly from our own forests, while the former" must have free access to the Canadian spruce forests so long as spruce is the chief pulp wood." He declares that ground wood should bet admitted free, "provided it comes from a country which does not in any way restrict the exportation of wood pulp or ground wood, and that there should be a reduction In the duty on news paper providing that It comes from a country which does not In any way restrict "the exportation of pulp wood, wood pulp or printing paper." Mr. Plnchot places the first duty for conserving the forests upon the lumbermen lum-bermen themselves, saying: "If the lumbermen do not make the j most of this opportunity, legislation is coming and coming very soon, w hich will force them to do clean work in the woods and to leave their cut-over lands in a condition to produce a second sec-ond crop." |