Forest Administration in China 579 



these kingdoms were conquered and an empire established, and 

 the habit of hunting was giving way to more secluded pleasures, 

 forest land was free to all for exploitation. The growing popu- 

 lation probably demanded increasing clearing of land for agri- 

 cultural purposes. At all events, there have been since then no 

 more appointments, and the rank of forest officials to take care 

 of the forests fell into disuse. Vigorous exploitation and clearing 

 must have occurred at this time. 



That the change from feudalism to other forms of state or- 

 ganization has its effect on forest conditions may be seen in 

 European history. From the 15th to the 18th centuries, when 

 feudalism was dying out in Europe, the change of property rights 

 and the uncertainty of property conditions resulted in consider- 

 able deterioration of the forest. "Every forest ordinance," says 

 Dr. Fernow in describing the forest condition at this time, "began 

 with complaints regarding the increasing forest devastation." 

 Japan escaped this fate, only because the overthrow of feudalism 

 there in 1886 was immediately followed by the introduction of 

 the modern and efficient state organization. 



Had the Chinese government, upon the fall of feudalism, 

 taken measures to nationalize the forest or to regulate the ex- 

 ploitation, the change in the forest conditions in China would 

 have followed a quite different course. Unfortunately, the 

 theories of government as understood by the statesmen in China 

 advanced very little in the past twenty centuries. Until lately, 

 the government always took a disinterested attitude toward what 

 the people were pleased to do; except in such cases where the 

 peace of the country might be disturbed or the safety of the 

 throne endangered, state interference was never resorted to. A 

 policy of laissez faire was always observed as far as possible. 

 When the people are allowed, in following their own interest, to 

 do what they will, the result cannot be otherwise than it was in 

 China. 



Internal disturbance or civil war must have contributed its due 

 quota in changing the forest conditions in all countries. We 

 have evidence of this fact in the Thirty Years' War and in the 

 French Revolution by which both the German and the French 

 forests were impoverished considerably. In the forty centuries 

 of the Chinese history there were twenty-five major revolutions 



