TREE-FELaNG IN GERMANY
Si,—Mr. J. H. Morrow sees many advantages for us in the felling of German forests, but his letter shows the danger of viewing Germany's problems apart from their European context. It is undisputed that a Western Europe strong enough to resist pressure from the East demands health at its core—a Germany able to pay its way and to provide decent standards of life. It is also undisputed that only by a vast expansion of industry as well as by intensive agriculture can Western Germany support a population swollen by millions of " expellees " from Eastern Germany and elsewhere. But does our policy accord with this necessity?
Germany's soil and climatic conditions differ widely from our own. The very existence of the German people has depended on their forests. "They might have shared the same fate as those civilisations of the past who have vanished through neglecting their tree heritage." They were driven to a progressive forest policy by realising "the necessity for soil conservation, to conserve the water supply . . . to maintain irrigation . . . to prevent floods." (Sc. Barbe Baker in I Planted Trees.) Forest destruction in fact means a vast loss of productive power. Allied policy has been to supply food with one hand, with the other to take away Germany's means of paying 'for it. Even the price of enforced timber exports has been kept artificially low ; and the same timber put into finished goods could have earned twenty times as much. Timber industry alone formerly gave employment to 10 per Cent. of German workers. Nor can the future be safeguarded, as replanting on the vast scale which would be required is now beyond German resources.
In Western Germany millions of expellees dog the economic machine— unemployable or unable to find employment ; they starve on the dole, but reduce total food supplies • while rebuilding is made impossible by timber shortage they add to the overcrowding of the ruins, the garrets, cellars -and bunkers. Eyerywhere unwelcome they hate their very lives (suicides are numerous). irk. Morrow talks of forests as "war potential." A far more real war potential exists in the minds of the millions who are homeless. The authors of Potsdam have evoked the councils of despair, and the temptation arises to look to war with Russia (or perhaps a "deal ") as offering the only chance of eventual return to their homelands. The least we can do now is to keep our hands off the means of bare sub- sistence in a bankrupt country ; to cease the dismantling whether of factories or of forests.—Yours faithfully, DOROTHY F. BUXTON. Whingate, Peaslake, Surrey.
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