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under an efficient and successful administration; and the measures determined upon last year to secure a supply of men with a special professional training should not be discontinued until the means can be provided in this country for training the men required for the Forest Department."

On the subject of the cost of his proposals we read:

"In conclusion, it seems necessary to frame an estimate of the probable cost of the scheme proposed in this Report. If it were only intended eventually to provide for recruiting the controlling establishment, the number might be limited to seven apprentices annually. In paragraph 24 of my Report of the 28th July, 1868, it has been explained that this will be the probable number of annual vacancies, when this branch of the Department shall have attained its full strength, say, from eighty to ninety officers. But the first object is to provide competent men for the executive branch of the Department, which, as explained above, is now in course of formation only, but which will eventually comprise a large number of officers.

Bearing this in mind, it may perhaps be necessary to sanction the appointment of twenty apprentices annually, and to distribute this number among the different provinces as suggested above. Assuming Rs.25 and Rs.40 as the rates of pay for the two grades, or 32 on an average, the annual outlay would amount to Rs.650 per mensem, or, say, to Rs.7,800 per annum. In the Report quoted above, the percentage of vacancies in the Forest Department has been estimated at 8 per cent. Twenty apprentices annually therefore would suffice to fill all vacancies arising in a body of 250 officers. This is far in excess of the present number of officers of the controlling and executive branches, but it will be remembered that men are required not only to fill vacancies, but equally to provide for new appointments.

It should here be mentioned that the training of probationers in Europe is more expensive. In paragraph 21 of the Report of July, 1868, it has been shown that the amount expended on each probationer until the day of his arrival in this country will be about Rs.4,000. And as it is proposed to bring out four men annually, this will entail an outlay every year of Rs.16,000.

But then this is only a temporary measure, intended to be continued until a sufficient number of competent officers has

been secured to instruct apprentices and executive officers in their work.

The training of native apprentices here suggested will be a permanent measure if it proves successful, and their numbers will necessarily increase as the Department expands.'

The Secretary of State's Despatch (R.F., No. 20, dated 6th October, 1869) to the Government of India on Brandis' Memorandum is of such a lucid nature and deals with the subject from so wide a view-point that it merits reproduction here:

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You transmit a very able paper by your Inspector-General of Forests, Mr. D. Brandis, and your observations on it, remarking that you do not enter into the merits of the proposal, but have as yet merely circulated it for the opinions of the local administrations. You state, however, that some regular organisation of the subordinate establishments will, no doubt, be necessary, both to place the administration of the forests on a satisfactory footing, and to secure the preparation of natives for the higher appointments in the Forest Department.'

I entirely agree with the opinions of my predecessors, to which you refer in the opening paragraph of your Despatch, that it is most proper and desirable that we should enlist the services of the natives in the higher grades of the Forest Department, and thereby secure their interest in the preservation of the forests; and I concur with Secretary Sir Stafford Northcote (paragraph 8 of his Despatch of the 24th November, 1868) in adopting Mr. Brandis' views as to the great importance of such a course towards the stability of our conservancy measures in India, and in the satisfaction with which I shall learn the appointment of any competent natives to positions of trust and consequence in the Forest Department. There is also a passage in Lord Cranborne's Despatch of the 9th of July, 1866 (No. 48), in regard to the subordinate appointments, which is worth quoting:

I think it highly important that it should be impressed on all Assistant-Conservators that it is part of their duty to endeavour to train the natives employed in subordinate forest posts, so as to form them into an efficient staff, and give them an interest in the work of the Department. This is an object which will, of course, be only gradually attained, but it is one which the superior European officer may further very much by personal attention and influence.'

I shall not now enter upon the details of the question as

discussed in Mr. Brandis' Minute, since you have deferred any expression of your opinion until you have heard the opinions of the local administrations.

My Despatches in this Department will have shown you the great importance which I attach to the preservation of the forests of India, and my readiness to adhere to the policy of my predecessors with respect to them. The principles laid down of late years have shown that, in order to repair past neglect in regard to the forests, a permanent system, under skilled officers, must be established and steadily pursued; that, in order to effect this, a considerable outlay will very possibly be necessary, but that that outlay will ultimately be well repaid, even in a financial point of view. But the main object is to avert the serious calamity which was rapidly coming upon the country in the total destruction of its forests.

In order to establish this system. and conduct it upon sound principles, officers especially trained in the science of forestry, practical and theoretical, are absolutely necessary; and recourse has therefore been wisely had to those countries where the forests are extensive, and the officers administering them are trained for the purpose, as they are for any other profession. We are also availing ourselves of the practical knowledge which may be acquired on a small scale in this country or in Scotland. We are to continue this scheme of training until we have obtained a sufficient number of skilled officers in India, and the forests, or a part of them, are under such systematic management as to admit of men being trained in India to carry on forest operations.

I allude to these circumstances, not with a view of depreciating the employment of natives, for which I repeat my anxiety, but in order to show that the smaller cost which their employment would entail must not induce Your Excellency in Council to employ them unless they are really competent to take their part in managing the forests. Some preparations will be necessary for them, and time will be required to obtain it. If natives are appointed to posts before they are capable of fulfilling their duties, it will but retard the object we have in view, and irreparable mischief may be done to the forests. The proposal, therefore, which you have made, and to which, on the principles which I have stated, I give my hearty approval, ought not in any way to interfere with the system which we are pursuing, and need not affect the answer which I am expecting to my Despatch of the 15th of July,

No. 10, as to the number of young men to be selected in this country for training in France and Germany. The surest course seems to me to be to hasten on, as far as practicable, the skilled training of all the classes of officers to be employed in the forest service.

You will inform me of the opinions which you and the local administrations may form as to the best measures for accomplishing the object which you have in view, and I can assure Your Excellency in Council that you will find Her Majesty's Government anxious to co-operate with you in any measures which may place the conservancy of the forests of India on a permanently sound basis."

The outcome of these suggestions was, as is now known, the establishment in 1878 of a Forest School at Dehra Dun by the Government of the North-West Provinces and its transference to the Government of India in 1884. But many years were to elapse before the natives of India appeared in any numbers in the higher administrative posts of the Department. Although, as the correspondence above detailed indicates, the opportunity lay in their hands to take advantage of.

CHAPTER III

THE PROGRESS OF FOREST ADMINISTRATION IN THE MADRAS

PRESIDENCY, INCLUDING MYSORE AND COORG, 1865-70

T

HE progress made in the introduction of Forest Conservancy into Madras, reviewed in a previous part (Vol. I, Chap. XVIII), was chiefly confined to Cleghorn's work in the Presidency. In 1863 Captain R. H. Beddome was officiating Conservator, and was ordered by his Government to collect and systematise all the information relative to the working of the forests so far as it existed at that time. Beddome carried out this order and produced what was the first Manual of Forest Operations compiled at the period. In alluding to the Progress Report of Forest Administration in British Burma for 1861-62 which he had been requested to study in this connection, Beddome remarked that the work in Burma had sole reference to teak, the extent and situation of the teak forests, their contents, method of girdling, blasting of rocks in rivers and so forth. In contrasting this work with that in Madras at the time he, unconsciously perhaps, pronounced the strongest condemnation which had yet been written on the methods of working the Madras forests, methods which had been in force during the past sixty years. He wrote:

"In the Madras Presidency teak may be said to be a rare forest product, our only teak forests of any importance being the Anaimalais and the Wynaad teak belt; girdling has long since been given up as a grand mistake, it so increases the heart-shake and otherwise impairs the quality of the timber, that girdled teak is generally sold in the Malabar market at a discount of 50 per cent upon green felled teak. Whether, from its being necessary to float the timber immediately after the tree is felled, or from any other reasons, the girdling system is really unavoidable in Burma, I am not able to offer an

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