249 



[Resolution of the Governor General in Council', 

 No. 3264, dated the 17th of October 1861, the Board 

 will instruct the Collector to endeavor to bring the 

 applicant for the Grant, and the parties who possess 

 a right to use the spontaneous products of the soil 

 within the tract applied for, to a mutual agreement 

 as to the terms upon which (if any) any hereditary 

 and transferable property in the soil may be given 

 to the former, subject to the exercise of their cus- 

 tomary right by the latter. If an amicable arrange- 

 ment be come to, the Collector will report the parti- 

 culars for the information and sanction of the S udder 

 Board of Revenue. Otherwise the Collector will 

 proceed to estimate the value of the prescriptive 

 rights, as above, on a liberal basis, and will submit 

 the case, through the Sudder Board of Revenue, to 

 the Government in view to the payment of full 

 compensation/' 



All written laws must necessarily have been fram- 

 ed after Societies had advanced some stages beyond 

 the most primitive state. It is futile then, to 

 hope, by the examination of codes of laws, to ascer- 

 tain how property in the soil was first, or is naturally 

 acquired. Nor would it be of any practical use to 

 do so. The first laws of peoples, are valuable, 

 however, as giving us the nearest possible view of 

 an interesting subject, and the concurrent testimony 

 of the lawgivers of many nations in an early 

 stage of civilization in favor of certain fundamental 



