PROJECTED LEGISLATION ON FORESTRY. 217 
the Committee further reserve to themselves the right so 
to formulate the paragraph that most persons, without any 
special knowledge of forestry, may be able to judge of 
the damage done. Uncertainty in this law were, however, 
a great evil, not only for those who may break it, but for 
law-abiding citizens, whom revenge or ill-will might seek 
to visit with undeserved penalties, and therefore it is better 
that some offenders should escape than that law-abiding 
_citizens should be unjustly punished. 
‘Respecting spots which have been leased out to tenants 
the Committee seek to strengthen the stated provisions, 
by enacting that the wood on such spots shall be protected 
thus: In the paragraph on forest lands appertaining to 
outlying settlements, intended to replace section 37 in the 
existing statutes for 1851, the Committee has proposed 
that the person or persons renting the property, or protiting 
by it, shall also be liable as well as the proprietor. In 
other cases, where persons renting, &c., have the right to 
take wood for house use, the Committee have proposed 
that such right shall not be recognised until he has 
expressly consented to respect the above-mentioned regula- 
tions. In this way the Committee hope that misuse and 
abuse of the forests in such circumstances will be lessened, 
if not prevented, a matter, the importance of which will be 
recognised, seeing that, according to the calculation of the 
Committee of 1874, such misuse and abuse apply to no less 
than 4-5ths of the existing forests in turning them to use. 
‘The three first chapters in the Forest Laws, proposed by 
the last Forest Committee, deal with forests belonging 
immediately to the Crown; with forests on common lands, 
and with forests managed in common, as also with those 
on private estates. We have given a summary of the 
main contents of these. The last section of the chapter 
deals with Svedanje, Kyttande, and forest fires, with the 
penalty for destroying forests, together with the penalties 
for other violations of the forest code, and last of all it 
contains certain single statutes. 
