88 MALAY LAND TENURE. 



" comes limited and then the rotation is shortened to a number 

 " of years — seven or even less — in which a growth, now reduced 

 " to bamboos and smaller jungle, can be got up to a sufficient 

 " density and height to give the soil and the ash- manure neces- 

 <c sary. In its ordinary form, this method of cultivation may 

 " give rise to some difficult questions. It obviously does not 

 c< amount to a permanent, adverse occupation of a definite area 

 " of land ; nor does it exactly fall in with any western legal con- 

 " ception of a right of user. In some cases it may be destructive 

 " of forest which is of great use and value, in others the forest 

 " may be of no use whatever, and this method of cultivation may 

 " be natural and necessary. The progress of civilisation and the 

 " increase in the population always tend to bring this class of 

 " cultivation into the former category, and then it is very difficult 

 " to deal with. It is impossible not to feel that whatever may 

 " be the theoretical failure in the growth of a strict right, the 

 " tribes that have for generations practised this cultivation from 

 " one range of hills to another, have semething closely resem- 

 "bling a right; they have probably been paying a Government 

 " revenue or tax — so much per adult male who can wield the 

 " knife or axe with which the clearing is effected — which 

 " strengthens their claim to consideration. In creating forest 

 " estates for the public benefit, the adjustment of ' toung-ya? 

 " ' kumri,' " or 'j'itm } claims has now become a matter of 

 " settled and well-understood practice. In the Western Ghats it 

 " is becoming a subject of difficulty,* but the discussion of the 



* " Already, in the Konkan, whole hill sides have been reduced to sterility, 

 " while the soil washed by the heavy monsoon rains off the bare hill side, has 

 " silted up and rendered useless, streams and creeks which were once navigable. 

 " The difficulty is that the tribes are always semi-barbarous, and the task is to 

 " induce them to overcome their apathy and take to permanent cultivation. 

 " Unfortunately, sympathetic officials, properly alive to the necessity of kindly 

 " treating these tribes, are usually totally blind to the real danger of destroying 

 "the Ghat forests, or what is worse, professing to believe it, the belief has no 

 " real hold on them. To abolish this destructive cultivation, serious and sus- 

 " tained effort is necessary ; to get the people to settle down, and to procure 

 " for them cattle, ploughs, and seed-grain, requires liberal expenditure. It is 

 " difficult to find officers who have the time or the zeal necessary for the first, 

 " and financial difficulties are likely to be in the way of the second. An easier 

 "course is to draw harrowing pictures of the suffering caused to the tribes by 

 " stopping their ancient cultivation, and to denounce the efforts of the Forest 

 " Administration as being harsh and without recognition of the 'wants of the 



