region just so long as corn production is a profitable line of agriculture for the farmers to pursue. But if some other crop becomes more profitable than corn, the new crop will be raised; or, if the value of dairy products rises proportionately higher than corn, the corn will be used for ensilage.
The removal of such an industry would not impoverish the community except in so far as the local people had invested in it. So a business which exploits without waste a mineral resource, the amount of which can never be increased, can not be considered blameworthy for the entire disappearance of the supply. It is very different when we consider a resource, such as timber, which, by proper handling, can be made permanent, and can be even increased from two to ten fold over its natural productivity. A company which enters a region with the intention of stripping off within ten or twenty years timber which has been one or two hundred years in growing, and which can not be regrown in less than three quarters of a century, is in much the same position as the gentleman swindler who entertains lavishly, pays generously for what he gets, but finally escapes with the wealth of his confiding friends. It is only fair to say that this does not apply to the lumbermen of the past, for, after all, business honesty is a very relative matter, and one can hardly expect a firm to conduct its business on principles in advance of public opinion. That interlocking directorates were in good repute a decade ago will not excuse such a condition in the future.
It will be apparent to any one considering permanent prosperity, that such an industry, removing in a wasteful manner a resource like timber, that could be handled in a better way, is anything but an asset to the community. Such a business not only should not be encouraged by tax rebates, but should be controlled by state regulations safeguarding the community from such disastrous results of a wasteful policy as may be seen in many deforested sections of the country.
Innumerable instances could be cited from various states of serious mistakes in public policy where injurious industries have been encouraged by tax rebates. One may suffice as an example. In a Vermont town there was a timber property that was assessed fifteen or twenty years ago at $40,000. For several years, while this timber was being removed, the saw-mill manufacturing it was exempted from taxation. The mill is now gone, and the real estate is assessed at $1,000. Many other properties have depreciated in the same way, and the inevitable result is a steady increase of the tax rate. Depopulation and degeneration are the natural results of such a policy.
II
Lumber prices in the past have not justified much attention to the growing of timber as a private business. It must be remembered that
