Balata and the Balata Industry. 229 
mitted except under the supervision of a Government 
agent. This change is necessary alike in the interest of 
the Crown lands and of the Indians. It is notorious 
that unscrupulous men use the privileged and almost 
uncontrolled liberty which Indians enjoy to make use of 
any forest product, to evade the law and its obligations 
as regards themselves. The colony is thus defrauded, 
and the duped Indian, who is led by such men very 
often to transgress the limit of his privilege, is also done 
out of the fair reward he should receive for his labour. 
All this would at once be stopped if it were made illegal 
for any one to purchase from an Indian except through 
the Government Agent, who in this capacity would act 
as protector both of Indians and of Crown lands. 
Except only on land left for cultivation, for which a 
definite but limited time should be allowed to bring it 
into use, to prevent parties obtaining land, and not 
employing it for the purpose for which it was licensed, 
in place of the Acreage Tax, the present form in which 
the forest revenue is collected, a duty or royalty should 
be substituted and imposed on all forest products with- 
out exception. With the close supervision that it would 
entail, this change would in itself effect a vast and 
beneficial change in the forest administration, and 
materially increase the present forest revenue. There 
are also certain things which the forests produce in 
more or less abundance according to the part of the 
country, the trade in which it is desirable should be 
legalized, — such as the collecting of plants, nuts, tonka- 
beans, gums, balsams, &c, — but which as they are 
found scattered over wide and distant regions can- 
not be covered by limited and supervised grants, and 
