OF THE FOREST ORDINANCE OF 1669. 49 



but the constituted body survives continuously ; and by 

 individuals on entailed trust. 



But the claims of the Government, as representative of 

 the State, went further than this ; and within certain 

 limits they considered they had a right to prescribe in 

 regard to the exploitation of forests held in possession by 

 private persons. In reference to this, I may mention that 

 according to a principle accepted generally by students of 

 Forest Science if not first propounded by them forests 

 are national property ; and this principle is -recognised in 

 the legislation of not a few of the nations of Europe. 



By the tenet that the woods and forests of a country, 

 not the State forests alone, but all, are national property, 

 it is not understood that the population of a country have 

 one and all of them a right to go into the woods and 

 forests everywhere and cut or fell as it may please them ; 

 but that these forests, public and private alike, are the 

 property of the nation in its entirety : not of the indivi- 

 duals composing the nation at any one period, nor of these 

 conjointly ; but of the nation irrespective of time, of the 

 people constituting the nation in times past, in the passing 

 present, and in the times coming property of which each 

 successive generation has a right to the usufruct alone ; and 

 which it is bound in justice to leave to the succeeding gene- 

 ration in as good condition as it was found, or with an 

 equivalent in national property or national advantage, for 

 any diminution or deterioration which has been occasioned 

 in it. And what thus aifects the nation as a whole, or the 

 generation enjoying the usufruct, affects thus and thus 

 only, the individuals of whom it is composed. 



It may at first sight seem an extravagant tenet this ; 

 but it is only an amplification of the principle involved in 

 the statement made in regard to the forests of France at 

 the earlier period of its national history, that forests were 

 regarded not as communal, but as common property ; and 

 the principle is one recognised and acted on in our British 

 legislation* 



