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with the supply of timber for the Navy, but they met with a chequered existence.

On the subject of the amounts of teak extracted from the Malabar forests and the prices ruling at this period the following extract from Milburn's Oriental Commerce, 1813, Vol. I, 328, is of considerable interest :

"In the year 1799, 10,000 teak trees were brought down the Beypur River (Malabar). This was the produce of several years; but it was estimated that from 2000 to 3000 trees may be annually procured."

"Teak timber, of an ordinary quality for shipbuilding, sells at 9 or 10 rupees a candy, which measures 15 English cubical feet; a foot therefore costs from Is. 6d. to 2s. Choice timber sells as high as 16 rupees a candy, or Is. 10d. a cubical foot. Bombay is generally supplied with teak plank from this part of the coast. The Company usually contract for what they require, and the Resident at Cochin frequently has the contract. The following are the prices at which the Bombay Government was supplied in 1800:

Ist Sort, 40-50 ft. long 14-16 in. square

2nd 3rd

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Rs. 4-16 per candy.

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Plank from 1-5 borels thick

"This was of the first quality, the plank of the usual length and free from rents. Notwithstanding the coast of Malabar may be considered the storehouse for Bombay, yet the demand for teak timber has so much increased that within three or four years large quantities have been imported from Rangoon."

Within a few years after the first attempts to extract teak from the Malabar forests by European syndicates grounds arose for believing that, whilst Tippoo Sahib held sway over this part of India, the right of felling teak had been (as it was up to 1840 in the neighbouring countries of Cochin and Travancore) an exclusively royal privilege, i.e. that teak was a "royal" tree.

In August, 1800, the Court of Directors accordingly authorised the Bombay Government to assume this right on behalf of the East India Company. As the Province of Malabar had now been transferred to the Presidency of Fort St. George (Madras), the Court's instructions were not given effect to. It was the enquiry addressed to the Government of Bombay by the Court of Directors in 1805 which first stimulated the

former to make active enquiries on the subject of the teak forests the control of which had intermedially been restored to them. The teak timber was required for the King's Navy and a Commission of Survey was appointed by the Bombay Government, the Commissioners being given a wide latitude which covered not only the composition of the forests but also the proprietary rights existing in them. They were to report on what could be regarded as public forests and to distinguish them from groves and plantations forming private estates. This enquiry led to the proclamation (25th April, 1807) that the royalty rights in teak claimed by former Governments were vested in the Company, and all unauthorised felling of teak by private individuals was prohibited. In the previous year Captain Watson had been appointed the first Conservator of Forests in India, his charge being Malabar and Travan

core.

The proclamation of 1807, which formed the basis of the Conservator's authority, contained no definition of the term "sovereignty," nor had those forests been specified over which the sovereignty extended.

The instructions of the Court of Directors of 1800 indicated that their object was to obtain a regular supply of timber for public purposes, from unappropriated lands, to which alone the proclamation was intended to apply. It was not intended to invade private property.

In the district of Palghaut Captain Watson reported that the inhabitants generally resigned their claims to the forests without a murmur. Some of these forests were claimed as hereditary property, but the owners subsequently admitted that they held the forests only as a grant from the Rajah of Palghaut to their ancestors. They consented to resign their claims and to take charge of the forests as overseers of forests, receiving in settlement a royalty for every tree felled. The Conservator, on his own authority apparently, applied this or a similar procedure to the rest of the forests, and succeeded within a short space of time in establishing a monopoly of all the timber throughout Malabar and Travancore. He felled timber for Government purposes not only in the private forests, but even trees growing on cultivated lands paying revenue to Government, the proprietors being interdicted from felling teak without the sanction of the Conservator, either for sale or for their own use; or to remove young trees springing up and injuring their arable land. It does not appear

clear from the records whether the royalty payment per tree was paid outside Palghaut. The private timber trade was annihilated: for even if they bought timber with the Conservator's permission timber merchants could not market it, exploitation, save by Government agency, having been prohibited. The wasteful methods of felling and extraction by the timber merchants prior to the establishment of the Conservatorship had been admittedly appalling, but the new regime was far too drastic to be continued as a method of permanent administration. The privilege of cutting fuel for private use, which had been practised at will by all from time immemorial, was also invaded and prohibited, a short-sighted step of amazing folly.

It is true that the forests received a modified form of protection during the period of the Conservatorship. Some regulation of the fellings was introduced and the former unrestricted and wasteful exploitation by private persons and timber contractors ceased.

By 1823 the growing discontent of the forest proprietors and timber merchants, chafing under the restrictions of the timber monopoly, and the outcry of the peasants, indignant at the fuel-cutting restrictions, came to a head. On the recommendation of the Governor of Madras, Sir Thomas Munro, and with the consent of the Supreme Government, the Conservatorship, in which Captain Watson had been followed by several successors during the seventeen years of its existence, was abolished.

As was to be expected a great reaction set in and the benefits which had accrued to the forests were dissipated. The land-owners took possession of the forests and unchecked felling once again reigned supreme. Even the Government forests, the ownership of which was not in dispute, were the subject during succeeding years of almost unrestricted fellings, encouraged rather than checked by one of the timber agencies founded on the lines of the one established by Mr. Machonochie. This agency, under the supervision of an officer of the Indian Navy, made large advances for timber to native contractors. As a natural outcome of this deplorable retrogression on the part of the authorities large forest areas were entirely lost to the Government, never to be recovered; others were ruined; whilst many of those in the more accessible situations on river banks were cut out and disappeared. The consequences of this reckless exploitation were inevitable,

Within a few years the available supply of really first-class teak timber contracted and prices rose.

The alarming clearances of forests and the reckless destruction of young growth, which should have been left to replace the old trees, was brought to the notice of the Government of Bombay in 1830 by the Nilumbur Rajah, who represented that this unchecked freedom in exploitation had given rise to inconveniences of scarcely less magnitude, though of a different nature, from those which existed under the former conservancy system. That timber of the best quality could no longer be procured and the inferior kinds were only obtainable at enhanced prices, and that this state of affairs appeared likely if unchecked to result in the entire disappearance of the forests.

After giving due consideration to this representation the Government of Bombay requested the Indian Navy Board, on 20th April, 1830, to submit a report on the Malabar forests with a view to introducing arrangements for their preservation and improvement. In reply the Board strongly advised the reinstitution of the Conservatorship, the Conservator's duties being limited solely to the preservation of the forests. The Government of Madras was then consulted and transferred the reference to their Board of Revenue for consideration and report (22nd April, 1831).

The Board of Revenue took no action. In September, 1837, a report was received from the Resident of Travancore on the forests of that Province and the subject was again reopened. The Government of Madras called the attention of the Board of Revenue to their previous letter, and in connection with the report on the Travancore forests asked the Board to consider measures for the protection and improvement of the timber forests under its charge. The Board replied that enquiries would be instituted, and at the same time furnished a report from the Principal Collector of Malabar, Mr. Clementson, dated 3rd April, 1834, in which that officer, referring to the Nilumbur Rajah's letter and to the recommendation of the Indian Navy Board, condemned all direct interference by the officers of Government in the cutting of timber in that district, considering that this would be an infringement of the rights of public property; but he suggested the imposition of a heavy duty on all teak timber which weighed less than three candies. This reply is representative of the opinions held by the majority of the officials of that time. Whilst energetically

[graphic]

FIVE LOGS FROM ONE TEAK TREE, SOUTH COINBATORE, MADRAS
Dimensions of log (with figure): Length, 16 ft. 9 in. Mean girth, 16 ft. 6 in. Volume 285 cubic feet

From Indian Forester," Vol. XLVI

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