ITEMS OF INTEREST March 16, 1907 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Seventeen million acres of forest lands have been added to the forest reserves of the United States by proclamations issued by President Roosevelt, made public a few days ago. Thirty–two forest reservations are created or increased in area by these proclamations. There was under consideration by Congress a proposal to change the law so as to require Congressional action upon the establishing of additional forest reserves. The President in a memorandum to the public bearing on the subject said, "If I did not act, reserves which I consider very important for the interests of the United States would be wholly or in part dissipated before Congress has an opportunity again to consider the matter; while under the action which I propose to take they will be preserved; and if Congress differs from me in this opinion it will have full opportunity in the future to take such position as it may desire anent the discontinuance of the reserves, by affirmative action, taken with the fullest opportunity for considering the subject by itself and on its own merits. ... Failure on my part to sign these proclamations would mean that immense tracts of valuable timber would fall into the hands of the lumber syndicate before Congress has an opportunity to act, whereas, the creation of the reserves means that this timber will be kept in the interest of the home–maker; for our entire purpose in this forest reserve policy is to keep the land for the benefit of the actual settler and home–maker, to further his interests in every way and, while using the natural resources of the country for the benefit of the present generation also to use them in such manner as to keep them unimpaired for the benefit of the children now growing up to inherit the land."

Consul General Amos P. Wilder reports that a new flour mill completed in Hongknog is the first one in South China. In Shanghai there are some five flour mills, with individual capacities running up to six hundred barrels a day, in the main owned and operated by Chinese, although one is run by Germans. These use wheat from the Soochow Creek district and even as far as Hankow, some six hundred miles. Recently, however, a cargo of nineteen thousand bags of Tacoma wheat was received by one of these mills. They have been very prosperous for three years past—some of them having been in operation for six years—but during the past year there has been a big shortage in native–grown wheat, and the high rate of exchange at present seriously affects them. The Hongkong mill is located on Junk Bay, some hours' ride by launch from the center of the city of Victoria (popularly called Hongkong), on the Kowloon (mainland) side. The moving spirit in the Hongkong project is a Canadian, who for a dozen years has done a very large business in this section for the Portland Milling Company. Some years he has sold nearly two million sacks of flour, of forty–nine pounds each. He was one of the first to introduce the cheaper grades of American flour.

The two–cent–per–mile–fare bill, recently passed by the Legislature of Nebraska, has become a law. The railroads in that State, including the Union Pacific, the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, the Chicago and Northwestern, the Missouri Pacific, and the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific, have issued circulars absolutely abolishing all classes of reduced fares, such as clergy permits, reduced rate orders, charitable rates, etc. The circular says that it is the purpose to make the two–cent rate the only possible rate to apply on Nebraska passenger fares.

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