SOME REMARKS ON BRITISH FOREST HISTORY. 1 83 



■Statistical knowledge, serious attempts at estimating the re- 

 sources of the country dating only from the latter half of the 

 seventeenth century : ^ consequently, generalisations were based 

 upon local happenings or on temporary circumstances. 



Secondly, the general provisions of any legislation were 

 almost invariably broken through, either by provisos safe- 

 guarding vested interests, or by licences subsequently granted. 

 The Wealds of Kent, Surrey and Sussex were excepted from 

 the Act of 1544: and even when special legislation was passed 

 in 1559 and again in 1581, restricting the felling of timber 

 trees for use in iron-works, the same districts were again ex- 

 cepted.- In Scotland an Act of 1609 prohibited the manu- 

 facture of iron with wood or timber — it could not, of course, be 

 made with anything else — but in 1612 licences were granted to 

 Sir George Hay and to Archibald Primrose to make iron, the 

 former in the whole of Scotland and the latter within the 

 sheriffdom of Perth : Sir George Hay's licence also covered 

 glass-making.^ In Ireland the prohibition of the export of 

 pipe-staves was not enforced, for fear of the discontent it would 

 cause among those who desired to make a profit from the wood- 

 lands they owned or the timber they exploited : in addition, 

 licence was granted to export 120,000 pipe-staves, on the ground 

 that they had been prepared and were ready for export before 

 the prohibition.^ When a few years later the prohibition was 

 renewed, the East India merchants were allowed to export to 

 England timber for casks and for shipping to be used in the 

 East India trade. '' Prohibition became profitable and soon 

 was regarded chiefly as a means of raising revenue by licence 

 duties. 



In the third place, the due enforcement of legislation was 

 very spasmodic and almost entirely dependent upon private 

 initiative : "^ where only the public interest was at stake little 



' Petty, Political Anatomy of Ireland {xi)"] 2) ; Political Arithmetic (c. 1676) ; 

 Gregory King, Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the 

 State and Condition of England {16^6). 



- St. I Eliz. c. 1 5 ; 23 Eliz. c. 5. 



* Acts of Parlt. of Scotland, iv. 408, 515. 



•* Cal. State Papers {Ireland), 1611-14, pp. 64, 65, 67. 



•' Ibid., 1615-25, pp. 48, 91. 



" Surveyors of iron-works were, however, appointed in 1636, with a view 

 to preventing the unlawful use of timber : Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, 

 No. 1751. 



