Stephen Gray, "The Government's Timber Business: Forest Policy and Administration in British Columbia, 1912-1928," BC Studies 81 (Spring 1989)

Read 10 Oct 2026. The forest policy of the Department of Lands, most of it under Duff Pattullo as Minister (1916-1928).

• Royalties: the Department worked toward a public share of timber value; Pattullo then told industry the Royalty Act "would not be introduced," and in 1925 told the Laurier Club there was "no more reason why the so-called speculator in timber should be mulcted of his profits any more than the speculator in coal, minerals, real estate or any other natural resource," for "unless there is left a measure of profit to the individual I cannot see how we can expect much development in the Province."
• Silviculture: "the lackadaisical approach to silviculture of the Minister himself"; he ruled out the cost of slash disposal and planting.
• Pulp and sales: his defence of the 1926 Powell River sale, that competition had "retarded the development of the industry": "The argument was ludicrous, if convenient."
• Log exports: "merely a safety valve to save waste"; and in 1927, "The people have to live today, and if there were no industry here there would be no people here."
• Verdict: "a striking inability, if not unwillingness, to use its potential advantage as owner of the timber resources... The provincial state, as proprietor, deferred to the perceived needs of the forest companies in most aspects of policy administration."

See Duff Pattullo, 22nd Premier of British Columbia: what did he get right, and what did he get wrong?.