HISTOEY FROM 1816. T 



personal interests, in short, under existing conditions and in this 

 respect are not only incompatible with public interests, but they 

 are absolutely antagonistic. 



' We consider also that all Government forest should be 

 strictly set apart and made unalienable ; of course, where private 

 rights already exist, or where in the case of the forests of Burma 

 certain rights have been conferred on private parties for a limited 

 time, they must be respected, though it might be good policy to 

 extinguish such rights on equitable terras, whenever it be found 

 possible to do so. 



;< It appears especially important, at the present time, when 

 the subject of the disposal of waste land has been so prominently 

 brought forward, to mark out and fix the boundaries of the forest 

 which it is determined to conserve, so that it may be definitely 

 determined what is fjrest, and what is waste land, available for 

 sale. We are sensible that the fact of the existence of a forest in 

 India is, in many cases at least primd facie evidence, that the land 

 so occupied is not fit for any other purpose, and it is, therefore, 

 necessary to be very careful about the disposal of waste land 

 containing forest tracts, until it be clearly" ascertained that such 

 land is susceptibb of being brought under cultivation, that the 

 grant is applied for this purpose, and that it is on the whole better 

 to give the land up to be reclaimed than to preserve it as a forest. 

 We annex a circular that has recently been issued from the Home 

 Department on this subject. 



" Of course, it cannot be said that any forest which is now 

 thought to be necessary, or worth preserving, will be held to be so 

 for all time ; but the facilities for the destruction of forest are so 

 great, the difficulty of reproducing it so insurmountable, and the 

 general tendency in this country to accept as truth the fallacy 

 that the clearance of forest is of itself necessarily an improvement 

 so common, that it will be important to record forest boundaries, 

 and to set forest land apart in a very strict and formal manner, 

 and it seems even possible that the object might be attained by 



