Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-08
PINCHOT SCORES
BALlINGER PLAN
SECRETARY'S PROPOSED LAWS
DECLARED WEAK
ONE OR TWO OF BILLS FIND
SOME FAVOR
Deposed Forester Makes Appeal to
Conservation Association for
Support to Get Better
Protection
Associated Pressl

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7.-"Conserva-
ton, the necessity for the passage at
the present session of congress of
good laws for the protection of natural
resources of the United States" is the
keynote of a report just made to the
National Conservation association by
| Clifford Pinchot, recently chosen presi-
dent of the association.
Mr. Pinchot takes up in what he calls
"a spirit of constructive criticism
nine bills relating to the conservation
of natural resources introduced into
congress January IS on behalf of the
secretary of the interior, one OF which
has been reported from the public
lands committee, the other eight being
still in the hands of the committee.
Mr.. Pinchot calls on the members of
the association to put forth s&rong ef-
forts to have enacted into law the bill
on the withdrawal of public lands
which has been reported in amended
form to the committee by Senator Mel
son, following conferences between
the committee and officers of the con-
servation association.
This bill, Mr.. Pinchot thinks, should
have the unqualified support of the
association.
Of the other eight bills he believes
that some merely require amendment,
while others must be recast.
The coal bill and the phosphate oil,
asphaltum and natural gas bill, he
reports, are fundamentally sound in
principle, but need some amendment.
They wisely separate, he said, the sl'r-
face of the land from the underlying
minerals and provide for the disposal
of the minerals by lease and not by
sale.
The coal bill, he asserts, contains
no sufficient anti-monopolisttc clause
The clause that purposes to regulate
rates to be charged the public as 50
framed that it may be evaded with
ease"
Another Clause
Another clause of the bill, he adds.
"may reduce the standard of mining to
the wasteful level of the prevailing
commercial practice"
In regard to the bill for survey of
railroad land grants, he expresses the
opinion that it will enable the rail-
roads properly to perfect titles to their
lands, but it oyerlooks the long pend
ing understanding between certain Of
the roads and the forest service for the
return of railroad lands within the ma
tional forests of the United States in
return for the right to cut in one body
an amount of timber equal to that on
the lands returned"
This understanding, he says, requires
only legislation to make it effective.
Speaking of the water power bill, Mr..
Pinchot declared that lit repeals in
silence the existing water power law
and curtails the already ample power
now exercised, with the approval of
a former attorney general, by the
department of agriculture"
The provision in the bill for compen-
sation to the government by the COM
panies. he holds, is good.
Water power sites should be pro-
tected from private appropriation un-
der the land laws, he says, and it
should be made possible to issue to
the companies permits good for and
definitely terminating at the end of
fifty years. The, fault found by Mr..
Pinchot with the reclamation bill is
that it opens reclaimed lands to absent
landlords and spectators.
A bad feature for the sale of timber
and timber lands, he declares, is that
it replaces the Objectionable features
in the timber and stone act which w9s
the inducement of speculation in gov
ernment timber, with provisions that
promote speculation and retard the
development of agricultural and min
eral lands far more than did the act
it repeals.
In failing to separate the surface
from the underlying minerals, the bill
for the classification of public lands
is inconsistent with the coal bill, he
finds.