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Forest Officers, the trees having been previously selected and marked by the Staff, and the localities at which the prescribed duties on the material were to be paid were to be fixed, and the material removed by these routes only. Private individuals were allowed to cut timber on their own lands for their own use, but in case of the reserved species would have to obtain licenses in a similar fashion to timber merchants if they wished to sell it. In areas where the timber was floated from the forests the material would be required to be stopped at the River Revenue Stations, where it would be measured and the duties levied on it. Rules were also prescribed for the collection of all drift timber and its disposal. It was enacted that the Rules could be amended by the authorities when found necessary, and penalties for their breach were enacted under the clauses of the Forest Act VII, which empowered such to be enforced.

The Rules promulgated by the Local Governments and Administrations directly under the Government of India marked a great departure in the first organisation of the forests on sound lines. Although it could not be expected that it would be possible to work them in full detail, at the outset they established in a significant manner the realisation by the Government of India and the Local Governments and Administrations of the value of the forest estate, and the necessity of endeavouring to put a stop, as soon as possible, to the wasteful and extravagant utilisation of the forest resources of the country which had been in force for so long. That many years were to elapse before the organisation proved adequate to the real needs of the country as a whole was due to various causes. In the more backward provinces the more or less uncivilised jungle tribes had to be gradually weaned from views which were the natural outcome of their immemorial usage of the forests, and educated up to a realisation, even if only a dim and hazy one, of the value of the protection it was desired to give to the forests in the interests of the latter and of the people themselves. In the more densely inhabited parts of the country the same education had to be supplied from a different view-point, and here there was an added factor in the opposition experienced from the timber merchants. Generally speaking, throughout the country the district officials themselves, with some notable exceptions, displayed considerable difficulty in grasping the true aims of a forest policy and forest organisation and in recognising that

the interests of the people were involved; that the new departure was not merely a question of the introduction of a new body of specialised officials on to the country-side to manage areas which previously had been under the district officials' exclusive charge. That these ideas were of long standing, having been voiced as far back as 1823 by Sir Thomas Munro, has been already shown in this History, and their gradual disappearance could only be expected as the benefit of the preservation of the forests became apparent. Moreover, progress was retarded in some provinces by the misdirected zeal of Forest Officers themselves, who endeavoured to put the Rules in force with uncompromising rigour amongst a population and under conditions where compulsion was an impossibility; the inevitable consequence being a set-back to the very cause which their enthusiasm was designed to forward.

In Madras the Governor in Council called for an expression of opinion from its revenue officials on the question of introducing the Forest Act VII of 1865 into the Presidency. The Conservator, Cleghorn, who was shortly leaving, wrote (19th October, 1867) that in his opinion, generally speaking, the introduction of the Act would have beneficial results; he also expressed the view that all Forest Officers of the higher grades and of proved temper and judgment should have the powers of a subordinate magistrate. Beddome also agreed that the application of the Act was desirable, as the forest rules under the local system in force could not be legally enforced. Unfortunately Beddome, on succeeding Cleghorn as Conservator, appears to have considerably modified his opinion in a later communication. The majority of the Collectors were strongly opposed to the introduction of the Act into the Presidency, and in this they were supported by the Board of Revenue, who expressed the following opinions in their Proceedings dated 16th April, 1868, No. 2777 :

"The application of the Act is quite unnecessary, inasmuch as the penal code already provides for offences of every description, under the heads of mischief, trespass and theft; and it is highly inexpedient to multiply legislation of a special nature, and especially so, to create offences, by rules' which may be varied at the will of the executive.

The Act will not in any way facilitate conservancy, and no forest land can be placed within the scope of it, which is not absolutely the property of Government, free from private rights of

every kind, for Section 2 specially enacts that its application 'shall not abridge or affect any existing rights.'

All the jungles and forests of this Presidency are within village boundaries, and the people residing in or near them, have, from time immemorial, had the right to take leaves for manure, firewood for their own use, and timber for agricultural purposes, to graze their cattle at certain periods.

These rights have been repeatedly recognised by Government, and are now scrupulously respected.

When, therefore, these and other similar existing privileges, as well as the rights of way which necessarily exist through forest tracts are taken into consideration, the operation of the Act in this Presidency will be very limited, and every prosecution under it may be met by the allegation (which the Forest Officers must disprove) that a right previously existed which vitiates the application of the Act.

When the forest is the absolute property of Government, no special Act is necessary to declare it such.

The great difficulty which the Forest Department has to overcome is that of proving the offences which they bring forward; as the magistracy of course refuse to convict without good evidence of the offence having been committed.

In this respect the Act affords no aid, as the Forest Officer will still have to prove his charges to the satisfaction of the magistrate, by exactly the same evidence as would be required without the Act.

But while thus useless for good, the Act, in the opinion of the Board, opens a wide and dangerous field for oppression and extortion.

By Section 8 any Forest Officer, even a 'peon' on five rupees per mensem, may arrest, without warrant, any person infringing rules under the Act.

It is true that any person so arrested must, under Section 9, be 'forthwith' taken before a magistrate, but this will in this Presidency involve very great hardship, as magistrates are at considerable distances apart, and it is obvious this provision is of itself sufficiently dangerous to condemn the Act.

It will be in the power of the pettiest peon' in the Department to harass the people at his own pleasure, and the Board would request the attention of Government specially to the letters of the Collectors of Ganjam, Coimbatore and South Canara, which well illustrate the manner in which the people, in the exercise of their prescriptive rights, would be placed at the mercy of ill-paid and almost uncontrolled officials.

The Forest Officers naturally desire to have ample powers, but the Board would observe that there are other things to be considered besides the value and preservation of timber. The grazing

of cattle in forest tracts is one of the chief grievances, but it is not too much to say that this was the saving of a very large proportion of the cattle of the country, and the preservation of a large amount of land revenue in 1866.

The encroachment of cultivation is another grievance, but in many cases the reclamation of land from a state of nature to that of producing food is an unquestionable advantage.

The fact is that a very large proportion of the so-called 'forests' of this Presidency are, in truth, merely jungles with villages scattered through them; rights of way in all directions, and privileges existing of various kinds; and it is impossible to introduce into such tracts the stringent system of conservancy practicable in countries like Burma (which the framers of the Act doubtless had in view), without exciting much popular discontent, and incurring serious risk of oppression.

It appears to the Board that the present system, considering the short period that has elapsed since Government began to exercise its forest rights, has worked very fairly, and what is now wanted is the demarcation of forest reserves, and the maintenance of suitable establishments.

On the first point it must be remembered that until quite recently, except in the Anaimalais and a few other localities, the people were free to cut what wood they pleased, to graze their cattle, and to exercise common rights without let or hindrance. It is but just, therefore, that the fact of these rights being withdrawn should be made known by proper notification, by demarcation, and by some effectual means of fencing where the forest surrounds a village and its cultivation.

So far as the Board are aware, the Forest Department have not yet done this in any case, and it cannot be expected that the magistracy will convict for mischief and trespass, when there is nothing whatever to show that the forest or jungle is preserved.

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With regard to the second point noted above, the establishments are so weak as almost to tempt spoliation of the forests; one or two peons' at what is called the outlet of a forest, but is in reality the outlet of a large tract of country, cultivated and populated, is the usual protective force, which can easily be avoided by those who wish to do so, seeing that there is no fencing, and that outlets exist in every direction.

It is not surprising that offences are committed under such circumstances, but the remedy is certainly not to be sought by making arbitrary additions to the Statute Book.

It is said that some judges have refused to recognise offences against the property of Government in forests, but this has no doubt arisen from the offence being laid as breaches of the forest rules, which, like the Revenue Hukumnamah,' are merely administrative orders.

It cannot be that such property is beyond the pale of the law, but if the doubt be as to Government being really the proprietor of any forest, the Act will not solve the difficulty, for Government cannot declare that to be their property which is not clearly their

own.

In the opinion of the Board this should be definitely settled, and it is highly desirable that where any forest land is reserved the system of conservancy should be sufficient to meet the end in view, and not, as in so many cases at present, utterly inadequate for the purpose; and specially should the sources of springs and rivers be protected by a careful and complete system of conservancy, which can be done without any necessity for introducing the Act."

With this expression of opinion on the part of the Board of Revenue before him the Governor in Council, Madras, wrote to the Secretary of State (Rev. No. 5, dated 22nd June, 1869), forwarding the papers giving the opinion of the officials consulted and expressing his concurrence with the Board in the following sentences:

"We have given the papers our most careful consideration, and are of opinion that the introduction of the Forest Act into the Madras Presidency is uncalled for at present, and would be inexpedient.

The tenure of land in Southern India differs vastly from that of those portions of the continent where the Act is said to have been introduced with success. As observed by the Board of Revenue, however applicable such an enactment may prove to the large forests of Burma and other similar localities, it could hardly be introduced into this Presidency, where nearly all the jungles and forests are within village boundaries, and are subject to the prescriptive rights of the villagers, without causing much popular discontent and serious risk of oppression.'

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It will be observed from the above that the Madras Board of Revenue, in spite of sixty years of forest destruction, had not yet been able to appreciate the fundamental basis of forest conservancy. That if an ignorant population failed to realise that their improvident acts would result in totally destroying forest areas and reducing them to barren lands, thus leaving nothing for their successors, it was, at least, the duty of a Government to take such steps as would remove the danger. The Proceedings of the Government of Bombay in the

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