EXPOSE DEs Motifs of law op 8th jdne 1864. 213 



" The principal stand-point of the law of rehoisement is the public safety, 

 the regulation of the water-flow, and the protection of the low gr ounds. 

 Economy is only secondary. 



" The stand-point of the law relative to bringing communal lands 

 under culture is more especially economy, the improvement of the com- 

 munal patrimony, the increase of the general food supply, and the increase 

 of the municipal revenues. 



" The formalities prescribed by these two laws are analogous ; but they 

 are not identical. 



" According to the law of reboisemenf the initiative should be taken by 

 the Central Government ; according to the law Sur la mise en valenr des 

 hiens commmiaux the initiative is to be taken by the prefect. 



" The law on reboisements sets agoing a very complicated machinery, 

 more especially the special commissions ; the law Sur la mise en valenr des 

 hiens eommunaux does not require the interference of these commissions. 



" In another relation the law on reboisement oflfers two kinds of encourage- 

 ment — fixed subventions and recoverable advances ; the other law offers 

 only recoverable advances. 



".Finally, the law Sur la mise en valeur des hiens commtmaux, conform- 

 ably to the nature of its aim, tends to withdraw the pi-operty improved 

 from the possession of the public ; it formally authorises the State to enact 

 that the improvements shall be consolidated ; the law on reboisements, on 

 the contrary, promises to throw open the ground for pasture whenever the 

 trees are old enough, and the result expected from regazonnement is 

 designed to be, as we have already said, to restore to the possessor a more 

 valuable in the place of a more extended privilege. 



" These differences will explain how it is the High Commission has been 

 led to think that there is no hope of great and regular development, the 

 necessity of which is now clearly shown, through the conjoint operations of 

 this double initiative, of these double instructions, and these different 

 tendencies, whatever may be done to organise the simultaneous application 

 of the laws. The High Commission has unanimously acknowledged that 

 the only practical efficacious means of obtaining the' desired combination of 

 gazonnement and reboisement in the perimeires mixtes, is to entrust the 

 initiative and instructions to be given, and the execution of these, to one 

 single administration under identical conditions, with the performance of 

 the same formalities, with a single end in view, and that that which is 

 arrived at by the law of rehoisement, and of which a law simply supple- 

 mentary to this would easily ensure the attainment. 



" Government has adopted the proposal of the High Commission, and, the 

 principle once admitted, the drawing up of the scheme presents few diffi- 

 culties. Nothing is needed but to extend to the renewal of pasture in the 

 pirimetres mixtes the arrangements already adopted for the forest repeuple- 

 ment, and to add to the funds created by the law of 28th July 1860 the 

 necessary supplement. 



" Gentlemen, we have very little to say upon the diff'erent articles of the 

 scheme, and we shall advert to them here very cursorily. 



"Art. 1, in reproducing the definition of art. 4 of the law of 28th July 

 1860, aims at defining the object of the new law, and at demonstrating that 

 it is only a supplement to the older one. And it should be thoroughly 

 understood that the action of the Finance Department can never take the 

 place of the Agricultural, Commercial, or Public Works Department ; that 



