present." This conviction seems to have been general amongst the whole of the Anglo-British community, and was voiced by the British and Anglo-Indian Press. The native army was considered to be absolutely loyal, and there appears to be little reason to doubt that, at the time of Lord Dalhousie's departure, in spite of Russian and Persian intrigues, in the main there was little disaffection. That the Company's rule was vitiated by glaring abuses and acts due to a shortsighted policy is now a matter of history; but the caste system of the people and their religious susceptibilities had been treated with a wise discretion. The Pax Britannica ran throughout the country, as was evidenced by the security afforded to private property, the great increase in the agricultural prosperity of the country, and the enormous increase in the flocks possessed by the community, an unfailing sign of orderly rule; for herds of cattle are a class of property particularly subject to theft in unsettled communities. Compared to the condition of things half a century earlier India was peaceful, orderly and achieving prosperity. The statements contained in Lord Dalhousie's address may be considered to faithfully represent the position of the country at the time.

It is true that there was a section of opinion at home which considered that the Indians should be given a larger share in the government of the country. But this opinion was practically confined to those who had never been in the East, nor come into close touch with the great variety of different races of India, and the methods of the exisiting administration. India was far from ready for such experiments. India was still uneducated. It was only in 1854 that measures for extending education by Government grants were adopted, and these measures were at first viewed with strong distrust by the people, a distrust which was fanned by an active propaganda, which attributed the new departure to a wish to proselytise the people.

Perhaps one of the chief causes of general discontent in India, apart from the special cause of the Mutiny, was to be found in the policy of the Company to spend as little on improvements in the country as possible. In the case of the forests the history of the first half-century brings this attitude into strong relief, when the trumpery expenditure on such small staffs as were sanctioned for forest work is taken into account. The expenditure of the Company on public works in India was but little greater. Large sums were expended on the salaries

of the large staff of high officials, and the great number of Collectors throughout the country, and on the revenue establishment generally; but the amounts allotted for the engineers' staff and public works were kept as low as possible. That this was a short-sighted policy in a country such as India, a mistake which the common mass of the people themselves would readily realise as a hardship, is beyond dispute. For the Government's predecessors had from time immemorial acted very differently. Under Mahomedan and Hindu government, the princes and nobles had ever delighted in associating their names with some stately edifice, some great road or canal, some public work of more or less utility. It was a fashion which those who made fortunes and a name delighted to follow. The Company had made no effort to follow an example so generally understood and expected by the people. On the contrary, in this matter they had pursued a policy of narrowminded short-sightedness, which it is difficult to credit, when it is remembered that though they were traders they had evinced a wonderful shrewdness in bringing peace to the country as a whole. Nor did any of the British who made great fortunes in the country, with the exception of such notable examples as Sir Henry Lawrence and a few others, ever think of devoting a portion of their wealth to India, where they had accumulated it.

The absence of good roads in the country at this period was notorious. They were confined to a few Grand Trunk roads and others required for purely military or governmental purposes; and those made by the British Planting community in the districts where they carried on their operations. Railways were practically non-existent. The consequence of this parsimonious and short-sighted policy was severely felt in the periods of recurring famine, due to the failure, or partial failure of the monsoons, to which India is always liable. In the almost total absence of transport facilities these famines resulted in a terrible mortality amongst the people of the afflicted districts. That no strong effort had been made to minimise these difficulties and reduce the danger is a grave indictment of the Company's administration.

The same apathy displayed in the construction of communications was apparent in the absence of any systematic efforts to dig canals and tanks (pond or lake) for the agricultural community. And the lack of communications also had a serious effect on the accessible forest lands in the neighbour

hood of the large cities and towns. The repeated demands made upon these areas to provide for the requirements of the communities led through constant and ruthless exploitation to the entire disappearance of considerable forest tracts.

This was the position when, in 1856, the Authorities decided upon replacing the old " Brown Bess" musket by the "Minié " rifle. The cartridges of these rifles were greased, and the soldiers, in the words of the drill book, had " to bring the cartridge to the mouth, holding it between the forefinger and thumb with the ball in their hand, and bite off the top elbow close to the body." This was tantamount to asking the high-caste native to defile himself and lose his caste by touching the fat of animals, and probably of cows. For the fat used for the cartridges made at home was from animals, and the paper so treated had to be torn with the teeth before the cartridge could be used. The representations of the Sepoys were treated with contempt by the Commander-in-Chief, in spite of warnings from British officers who understood the true position; and a belated attempt to revoke the order came too late. There were other grievances connected with the decision that all regiments, including the Bengal ones, must undertake oversea service, the order entailing a loss of caste to the latter which might take years to get back.

The peace and prosperity of the spring of 1856 had disappeared in the opening months of 1857, and on Sunday, May 10th, the Indian Mutiny broke out at Meerut. Nearly a year elapsed before the insurrection was quelled. During that period the extraordinary want of statesmanship and vacillation which heralded and attended its opening phases had given place to numberless examples of unexampled heroism; many fine and brave men, British and Indian, had gone to their long account; whilst British women had shown once again the magnificent courage with which they are capable of facing adversity and even death.

The incidence of the Mutiny at once threw into glaring relief the paucity of the communications in the country. The necessity for railway construction, if only to facilitate the movement of troops and their equipment, had become evident. The Government set themselves feverishly to work to repair the want of foresight of their predecessors. The urgent demands for timber to provide the sleepers for the new railway lines were met in the time-honoured fashion, and great forest areas in the central and northern parts of India which, owing

to the scanty population and their inaccessibility, had hitherto remained untouched by man, were ruined in order to supply the demands. No supervision was exercised over the work. Large numbers of trees were felled in the forests without reference to the possibility of extracting the logs, numbers of which remained in situ unutilised, to be subsequently burnt in the jungle fires. It was the aftermath of the Mutiny, and unfortunately within a few years damage was done to these fine forests which has exercised all the skill and knowledge of the Forest Department to repair, and will take many more years to complete. This exploitation on the old lines occurred in the first years of the newly reconstituted Government in India. In Bombay, Madras and Burma, especially in the latter Province under Mr. Brandis, as will be shown, some progress in true forest administration was attempted, as a result of the enunciation by Lord Dalhousie of a definite Forest Policy. And notable beginnings were made in the Central Provinces and the Punjab, as will be detailed. the N.W. Provinces, Oudh, Bengal and Assam, conservancy was only in the initial stages at the close of the period here dealt with.

In

The old East India Company did not long survive the Mutiny. The same storm which drove the last of the Moguls from Delhi to exile and death in Burma destroyed the great Company whose sovereignty had been founded on the crumbling ruins of the Mogul Empire. The East India Company! had failed to advance with the times. They had continued to govern India as they had commenced sixty years and more before. The Mutiny had increased the debt; repeated financial crises had been the outcome of their rule in the latter years; private enterprise and trading were discouraged, the great resources of the country remained undeveloped, and the commerce of the country was negligible.

The British people recognised that the form of government, which led to the Mutiny, had failed; and the subsequent publicity given to the maladministration of the country justified this view. The "double Government" of the Crown and the Company was no longer possible, and the entire administration was therefore assumed by the nation.

On the 1st November, 1858, a royal proclamation, issued throughout British India, declared the sovereignty of Queen Victoria as Empress of India.

The assumption of the duty of governing India by the

British people was to have far-reaching results in a great development in the prosperity of the country. And the forests, amongst other sources of public utility and wealth, were to be gradually brought under an efficient administration. That the importance of placing the forests under a proper system of conservation was fully realised before the close of the period the despatches of the Government of India and the Secretary of State, reproduced in the last chapter of this volume, will sufficiently indicate.

Mr. Brandis could not have taken up his work at a more opportune moment. For if the past is any criterion to the future the great work he was able to accomplish for the conservation of the Indian forests would have proved impossible under the system of administration developed by the East India Company in the plenitude of their power.

! ༢