AQENCY BY WHICH WORK IS TO BE CARRTRD OCT. "73 



plies of food if otherwise unobtainable, even to the extent of bearing 

 part or whole of the cost of carriage ; concessions of timber and grass 

 for building huts for the men, and of firewood for cooking or warm- 

 ing purposes. In the case of large operations giving steady employ- 

 ment all the year round, the employer may establish villageis for his 

 ■work})eople and their families, granting each family or household 

 some land for cultivation at low rents and the privilege of grazing 

 free, or at special rates, a fixed number of cattle. Furthermore, he 

 may raise and maintain a Provident Fund, to which each workman 

 will be bound to contribute, and he may establish primary schools. 



Section II. — Agency by which work is to be carried out. 



The work of felling and conversion may be carried out either by 

 direct agency of the owner of the forest (departmental agency as it 

 is calledin the case of the State being the owner) or by the purchas- 

 er of the standing produce. The former method is obviously the one 

 which offers the best guarantee of effectiveness from the point of view 

 of conservancy and treatment, if well organised under the direction 

 and supervision of experienced, energetic, and honest men who are 

 in close and constant touch with the fiuctuating affairs of the market. 

 The system also saves to the owner a part or the whole of the profits 

 that would otherwise fall to the wholesale purchaser of ;the standing 

 unconverted material. This is especially true in the case of the private 

 owner who gives his personal attention to the working of his forests. 



In the case, however, of State forests or of forests belonging to 

 corporate bodies, the entire directing and supervising agency is ne- 

 cessarily hired, and hence the requisite industrial activity and zeal is 

 nearly always wanting, and even if they are present, the inevitable 

 red tape, with its attendant hundred checks and ceaseless circumlo- 

 cutions, kills all initiative, damps ardour, and renders the working . 

 agency at best but a sluggish machine. Moreover, corruption not 

 unfrequently eats into profits, and may even make a possible paying 

 forest a losing or unworkable concern. Lastly, owing to the 

 peculiar constitution of the departments which together comprise 

 what we call the Government, favouritism (for those who confer 

 appointments have no private interests at stake), and the essentially 

 permanent nature of service in any of those departments (except 

 in the case of notorious dishonesty or gross incompetence or care- 

 lessness), unsuitable men, contrary to the custom of private mana- 

 gers or proprietors, are retained and entrusted with important 

 duties and large powers, which they exercise to the detriment of 

 the State. Hence the economical superiority of State over private 

 agency in felling and conversion operations is more often apparent 



