The Cordova daily times., 1921-06-16
(Continued from Page One)

Ill connection Wltn the forests. There are in Alaska some 20,OOO,0OO acres of national forests, created between 1902 and 1908. Up to the present time these forests have not been utilized extensively because of the lively small local demand for lum- ber In 1906. the lumber shipped into Alaska composed S6 per cent of the total lumber used there, and but IA per cent was cut from the national forests. In 1919 these percentages were exactly reversed, S6 per cent of the lumber used in Alaska being produced locally and but IA per cent imported, this latter being chiefly Douglas fir for special constructing purposes.
 We have in Alaska the opportunity to create a second Norway. Under intelligent management these for ests can be made to produce for all time to come a quantity of paper equivalent to oue-third of the pres. ent annual requirements of the Unit ed States. When we note what has happened in the past to our great forests not under government con- trol, surely the importance of re- taining control of these national for. ests in Alaska and of maintaining them on safe producing basis must be evident. The time is not far dis. tant when the increasing scarcity of lumber and of paper and the conse- quent high prices will make it neces- sary for us to draw heavily upon our national forests in Alaska If we are to profit from past experience we must not permit them to be ex- plotted but rather so administer them as to maintain their production.
 These national forests have been land are being administered on a basis of national and local co-opera- tion, with constant study of de- velopment and use. The plan worked out by the department is being ac- cepted as fair by number of sub stantial business interests engaged in the manufacture of paper. In January last a small pulp plant be- gan operation in Alaska under a na- tional forest purchase. Two large tracts of timber are now being ad- vertised for sale upon application from interests which contemplate the II building of complete news print paper mills. Other applications are pending, and there seems a fair pros pect that the paper industry will be established in Alaska just as rapidly as market and transportation conditions justify. The purpose is to put the making of paper in Alaska on a sound and continuing basis, de. veloping a perpetual industry by linn iting manufacturing capacity to the raw material which the forests will continue to produce.
 A good deal has been said con- corning the declining population in Alaska. It is interesting to note that while other parts of Alaska have been going backward and losing in population, that part of the territory embraced in the national forests has increased steadily in population and prosperity.
 |i Surely it would be most unwise and greatly against public interest if we should now scrap all the work which has been done by the federal government with these forests in Alaska, withdraw from the territory, and turn over the forests to a local board to do with them as it might see fit.
 l While the agriculture of Alaska is yet largely undeveloped, the work which has been done there at the ex- perlment stations maintained ana directed by the department of agricul- ture has been most helpful It is the sort of work which must main- tain the population as it's industries are developed otherwise the cost of imported food will be so high as to retard greatly industrial develop ment. The withdrawal of the de- partment of agriculture from this field of work certainly would be greatly to the disadvantage of the people of Alaska.
 Not long since, congress created the federal power commission, which is composed of the secretary of war,