make an effort to reduce the state of affairs which had developed in the Presidency under which the Forest Officer was drifting into the position of a policeman-chaukidar (watchman) in the forests, the greater part of his time and energies being occupied in impounding cattle or prosecuting offenders. Realizing the difficulties, Brandis' idea was that by giving effect to his proposals the best forest areas would receive protection by adequate closure, and a reduction in the forest police work would follow.

Forest conservancy in the Presidency did not move on smooth wheels during the next decade. Matters had become so unsatisfactory in the Northern Division, especially in the Northern Konkan, and the complaints of the ryots backed by influential public opinion, voiced by a body termed the Thana Forestry Association (whose origin could not be traced), so clamorous that in 1885 the Government of Bombay determined to appoint a Commission of Enquiry. This step was strongly advocated by the past and the then Secretary of State (the Earl of Kimberley and Lord Randolph Churchill) and by the Viceroy (Lord Dufferin). Although the scope of the enquiry covered the two districts of Thana and Kolába (the Northern Konkan) only, the questions raised and the policy discussed were to a great extent relevant to many of the districts of the Presidency. The Commission was appointed in Government Resolution, Rev. Dept., No. 5977 of the 24th July, 1885, and four voluminous Blue Books entitled "Report of the Bombay Forest Commission " were issued in 1887. The enquiry covered the whole known history of the forests of Thana and Kolába and presents the position of forest conservancy at the time and the causes which had brought about the existing position. It is impossible to do more than glance briefly at the recommendations of the Commission. The Chairman of the Commission was Mr. G. V. Vidal, Collector of Thana, and the Members: Rao Saheb Ramichandra Trimbak Acharya, Rao Babadur Krishnaji Lakhsman Nulkar, Mr. E. C. Ozanne, C.S., Lt.-Col. W. Peyton, Conservator of Forests, Mr. R. C. Wroughton, Deputy Conservator, and Rao Bahadur Yeshvant Moreshvar Kelkar. The latter also acted as Secretary. The opening paragraph of the Government Resolution appointing the Commission was as follows: "The Governor in Councilwishing to secure an efficient management of forests and believing that the conservancy of forests and the maintenance of the rights of the Crown is beneficial to the interests of the

people in providing for a continuous supply of timber; wishing to secure the agricultural wants of the people and the privileges they have hitherto enjoyed for the legitimate fulfilment of these wants; convinced that whatever friction has arisen in the management of forests, especially in Thana, such friction is due to a misunderstanding which can be removed; desirous to give to all parties concerned the means of bringing their views before Government-institutes a Commission." The scope of the enquiry was to be mainly directed to hearing and resolving complaints, considering the best manner in which the wants of resident agriculturists as distinct from trade demands, could provide for, to the position of the wild tribes in the matter of employment and their well-being generally, to the suggestion of means for educating the people on the subject of the value of forest conservancy and securing their hearty co-operation and to determine the necessity of ráb cultivation or otherwise. Lastly, the warning was added that the Commission should not lose sight of the fact that forest settlements were in progress, that the respective areas of Reserved and Protected Forests were not yet settled, and that the effect of the introduction of Working Plans on the supply of forest produce was still unknown.

It will be obvious that the scope of the enquiry laid down was admirable. The task laid upon the Commission was an extraordinarily difficult one, and it must be conceded that they approached it with great thoroughness. That the future outcome of their recommendations was not to achieve the success aimed at must primarily be laid to the door of the very unsatisfactory position into which the matter of forest conservancy had drifted, to the unwillingness of the Bombay Government to interfere with established, though pernicious, customs of the population, to the contradictory nature of the orders and restrictions issued from time to time by the Government and the contradiction in terms used by Settlement Officers in their reportsall of which are commented upon at length in the Report of the Commission. To emphasize the difficulties, the Commission preface their conclusions with the remark: "It must be remembered that the grievances we have had to enquire into do not merely refer to single recent acts restricting this or that local privilege but to the whole policy of Government as regards trees and the user of forests and waste lands, as pursued for a great number of years past. The complaints are not limited, as might be supposed, to the administration of the forests under

the comparatively recent Act of 1878. Some complaints date as far back as the year 1839, when the prohibition against cutting teak in forest lands was first issued (Vol. I, p. 86), or it may be, reaffirmed."

The preceding parts of this history will have disclosed the lines upon which the introduction of forest conservancy in the Presidency had proceeded. The lines of the investigation and the treatment in the Report of the Commission therefore naturally fall into the Sections: Grazing, Timber, Firewood and Bamboo Exploitation; Ráb; Minor Forest Produce ; Free Grants of Wood; Wild Tribes; Trees in Occupied Lands; Claims to Fruit Trees in Waste Lands; Rules under Section 41 of the Forest Act; Forest Offences and Abuses of Privileges; Forest Establishments and Trade.

The chief causes of discontent on the part of the population were connected with grazing, ráb, free grants of wood and the sale of trees on occupied lands. The grievances of the wild tribes were of a minor character and due to the failure on the part of the Forest Officer to gain them over to his side, which Peyton's treatment of them in the Southern Circle had succeeded in doing.

The Grazing Question. Perhaps one of the chief causes of the complaints against the forest department was the position of the grazing question. This had become very complex. It may be briefly reviewed: The old Settlement Reports of the different talukas made no special mention of the assignment of lands for grazing or other purposes. The records of the Revenue Survey between 1854 and 1876 showed in detail how the waste lands of each village were then treated and the uses to which they were assigned. But the remarks in this connection presented an extraordinary variety of expression in the words used to convey apparently identical meanings. The presumption was that the work being done by different officers, without previous consultation, the verbal distinctions crept in unwittingly.

Some of the waste lands were set apart exclusively for forests; some for forests and grazing combined, the grazing being in most cases declared free, and in a few cases available only on payment; some for free grazing alone; some for sale of pasturage or grass; and others for no specified purpose. This differentiation would have been clear enough had it not been for the looseness with which various vernacular terms were used. The Commission allude to this difficulty as follows: "In the case of lands assigned for grazing in Thana, whether exclusively or in combination with forest conservancy, that in some instances the word 'mophat' (free) is inserted while in others it is omitted. It has been contended that

the entry of this word in some cases implies that its omission in others was intentional; or in other words, that while free grazing was promised in certain lands, grazing only was guaranteed as regarding other similar lands, without any promise that it should. be enjoyed free. Taking into consideration the manner in which these entries have evidently been made, we cannot believe that the Survey Officers intended that there should be any distinction whatever between the lands described as 'gurcharnikade' or 'gure charavi' and others similar in all respects described as 'gurcharnikade mophat' and 'gure mophat charavi.' When it was customary that the grazing should be sold, and it was intended that that custom should be continued, the land is either called 'Kuran' or 'vancharai,' with or without additional words referring to disposal by auction, or else without being described as 'Kuran' or charai,' an express direction is given to sell the grazing by auction. The word 'gurcharan,' like the word 'gairan,' clearly refers to free grazing only, and is always understood in this sense. In Government Resolution on grazing No. 7467 of 15th September, 1885, gairan' is used thus as denoting free grazing. When the word 'gairan' or its exact equivalent gurcharan' is used the addition of any word, such as 'mophat,' signifying 'gratis,' is redundant, and unnecessary, and its omission is of no importance. Thus 'gurcharan' and 'gurcharni kade mophat,' as used in the Survey Registers, are expressions of precisely similar import. Nor do we consider that even where the particular word 'gurcharan' is not used, any distinction was meant to be made between lands assigned respectively for grazing under the entries 'gure charavi' and 'gure mophat charavi,' because we believe, as above stated, that where it was intended to sell the grass or grazing of any land, either an express direction was given to do so, or else the land was described as Kuran' or 'vancharai,' terms clearly implying such intention."

It was indisputably the custom previous to the Survey that all unappropriated and unreserved waste lands were used by the people for free grazing. In lieu of these undefined and shifting areas the Survey assigned, wherever available, special areas in each village for free grazing for the cattle of that village, no portion of which land could be appropriated for cultivation or other purpose without the sanction of the Revenue Commissioner. The proportion of land so assigned to the total waste lands in Thana could not be ascertained by the Commission, as in the course of the demarcation of the forest lands which was carried on from time to time between the introduction of the Survey and the passing of the Forest Act of 1878 certain areas of land previously assigned for free grazing were included together with the unassigned waste lands in Imperial Reserves and removed from the list of free grazing lands, and new entries to this effect were made in the registers, the old ones being destroyed. When free grazing lands were converted

into Village Forests by the Demarcating Officer the area for free grazing was in no way restricted. But the areas of free grazing included in the Reserved Forests were no longer free and were thereafter sold by auction by the Collector's orders. Until the passing of the Forest Act this area was comparatively small and did not press hardly upon the people. The action taken in 1879 as regards the inclusion of waste lands in Reserved and Protected Forests consequent on the passing of the Forest Act very radically changed the arrangements of the Survey as regards free grazing. The total area assigned for free grazing by the Survey in Thana amounted to 660,485 acres. Of this area 401,566 acres were inIcluded in and notified as Reserved and Protected Forests under sections 34, 19 and 28 of the Forest Act. In framing the lists all lands which had been previously demarcated or set apart as Imperial and Village Reserves were included as "Reserved" Forests, while all other available waste areas were provisionally constituted Protected Forests, leaving their ultimate constitution to be settled after further inquiry. It is impossible here to follow the Commission into their detailed investigation into this intricate matter. They acknowledge the Government's complete ownership to all the land as also its decision, at all times evinced, to be ever fair and liberal to the peoples over whom it ruled; they also point to the universal custom of the people with regard to free grazing in the waste lands. The above short résumé will make it evident that unwittingly severe hardship had been imposed on the villagers and, as the Commission foresaw, the introduction of Working Plans (which did not then exist, the Thana Forests not having yet been divided into compartments) might make matters difficult for the Forest Department. At the time the effect of the notification of the Reserves gave the Forest Officer the right to prohibit free grazing, and, unfortunately, the officers acted strictly within the letter of the law. It is admittedly difficult to see how they could have done otherwise; but tact was, in many cases, not displayed to the extent it might have been. Prosecutions increased in number, the forest staff became little more than police officers, and the position arose which gave rise to the appointing of the Commission. An alleviation was attempted by the Government Resolution, No. 7467 of 15th September, 1885, which prescribed that annual auctions of the rights to graze and cut grass were to be generally abandoned; parts of the forest where young growth or planting was present could be closed; areas assigned for grazing in the forests, not yet occupied by the Forest Officer for forest conservancy purposes, in proportion to the area of free grazing included within such forest, were to be grazed free by the local villagers; and lastly, all Reserved Forests, except the parts closed as above, were to be opened to free and fee grazing from 1st June to 1st February unless special cases made such a course undesirable. This did not, however, satisfy the people. The two chief complaints were, firstly, that