WOODS AND FORESTS COMMITTEE. Lirrrza I.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Sin—I propose in this and some following letters to describe the system of administering the public lands under the control of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. I have no intention to make any personal attacks. The system is in many respects old and antiquated; and there are so many private interests connected with it, that its reform may be difficult—and without the aid of the House of Commons, would be impossible—whatever might be the willingness of the Chief Commissioner to control the barbarous practices and habits of the older and rather savage officials of his sylvan department. Some time since, Mr. Trelawny, 11.P., moved for and obtained a return re- lating to the New Forest, of its officers, its income, and expenditure. It was evident the state of things it exhibited could not remain unexamined; and in the course of the last session, Lord Duncan, 11.P., obtained the appointment of a Committee of the House of Commons "to inquire into the Expenditure and Ma- nagement of the Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues of the Crown; and to report to the House whether any reductions, alterations, or improvements could be made in that branch of the public revenue and expenditure." This Committee has made a abort report, with the evidence it obtained; and as its inquiries could not, in the last session, extend beyond the constitution and powers of the Board of Woods and Forests, the conduct of its business, and the management of the New Forest,
Whichwood Forest, Whittlewood Forest, and Waltham Forest—leaving other- and Crown property for future inquiry—it has suggested its reappont-
ment in the next session of Parliament.
Lord Duncan certainly devoted great labour to the duty he undertook as Chair- man of the Committee. It is not difficult to discover that he had very often to grope his way; but as his ground had not been previously much explored, he de- serves credit for a zeal which was not checked from the want of better guidance than old books and casual witnesses. He appears to have been left to himself to discover evidence so soon as he got beyond the office of Woods and Forests. His great task will be his final report; and it is to be hoped that he will advise a larger plan as respects future dealings with the public lands than some of his questions, from the incompleteness perhaps of his materials, indicate.
The property under the control of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests consists of several forests, parks, woodlands, manors in England and Wales, land revenues in Scotland and Ireland, quit-rents, leasehold houses in London, Windsor, and Richmond; and in addition to the management of this property, there are duties to be performed by the Board which may be best pointed out by reciting the separate offices of the Chief Commissioner. He is Gayeties of the Forest of Dean; Constable of the Hundred and Castle of St. Briavels; Chairman of the Commission for the Enlargement of Buckingham Palace; Chairman of the Commons Enclosure Commission; Commissioner for the Affairs of Greenwich Hospital; Commissioner for Highland Roads and Bridges; Commissioner for the Holyhead Roads; Commissioner for Paving Regent Sliest; Commissioner for Building Churches; Commissioner for the Conservancy of the Mersey; Trustee for the Crown of certain Chapels in Marylebone; One of the Council for the Affairs of the Dutchy of Cornwall; Member of the Fine Arts Commission; Chairman of the Commission for the Improvement of the Metropolis; Commissioner for Westminster Bridge; Chairman of the Metropolitan Sewers Commission;
And, lastly, the power and duties (the former chiefly to grant licences to shoot !) of" Chief Justice in Eyre" of all the forests are vested in him; though it may be added, that Lord Coke remarked in his time, the office "was commonly conferred on a man of greater dignity than knowledge of the laws of the forest"; and the saying held true down to the time the office ceased, on the death of the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, to be a distinct and independent appointment. It would occupy too much space to particularize the chief property subject to the control of the Board of Woo& and Forests—palaces, houses, manors, parks, or forests. The principal of the last class are Waltham Forest, Forest of Dean, the New Forest, Bere Forest, Woolmer and Alice Holt Forest, Whittlewood Fo- rest, and Whichwood Forest. The Board for the management of this property consists of a Chief Commis' - missioner, (Lord Morth,) two Commissioners, (the Honourable Mr. Gore and Mr. A. Milne,) and a Secretary. It was constituted in its present form, and its powers are chiefly regulated, by the statutes 2 Will, IV. c. 1, 2 and 3 VIII Br. c. 112, and 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 69.
The estates under the control of the Board are part of the hereditary property of the Crown, which is formally surrendered on the accession of a Sovereign in consideration of a civil list. Except that the form authorizes a certain flourish of speech when the public advantages of the disposal of some of it is opposed, the arrangement must be regarded as a permanent one. "The necessary expenses of supporting the Crown, or the greatest part of them, were formerly, it is stated, in the statute of the 1st Anne c. 7, defrayed by a land revenue which hath from time to time been impaired and diminished by grants of former Kings and Queens of this realm, so that her Majesty's land revenues at present afford very little towards the support of her government" This act imposed certain conditions on the future leasing of manors, messnages, lands, tenements, rents, tithes, woods, and other hereditaments; "so that"—continuing the words of the preamble just cited—" the land revenues might thereafter be increased, and the burden on the estates of the subjects of this realm might be eased and lessened in all future pro- visions to be made for the expenses of the civil government." Subsequent sta- tutes have been passed further regulating the leasing of Crown property.
None of the land in any of the forests can be leased, nor can the present system of their administration be interfered with, under the authority of any existing act of Parliament. Some two or three of the ancient forests have in late years been disafforested and enclosed—such as Salcey Forest, Rockingham Forest, and Hazle- borough Walk in Whittlewood Forest; and an attempt was made to disafforest Hainault Forest in 1819, but the bill did not pass the House of Lords. There are other forests, not in the occupation of the Sovereign, which might be abolished; though Sir R. Inglis appears, by the following question, (4,777,) to think other- wise—" Do you not conceive," addressing Mr. Commissioner Milne, "that it is part of the duty of the Commissioners to consider that they are only trustees, and are bound to restore, at an indefinite period, whatever that period may be, the lands, the farms, the parks, and the forests, in the same general condition as that in which they received them, improved only—a park as a park, a forest as a, forest, and so on ? " Mr. Milne assented as respected property "in the more im- mediate occupation of the Sovereign." But if this were the duty of the Commis- sioners as respects other property, it has already been neglected, and most properly; for supposing, as is in fact the case of a forest occupying a large space in a county, hindering its improvement, preventing the investment of capital, diminishing the value of surrounding land, checking the moral improvement of the people; with courts as antiquated as they are useless, and officers whose duties cannot be enforced; kept waste as a refuge for wild animals, insolvent so far as the expenditure depends on income, and certain to be the source of a wasteful expen- diture so long as it continues to be a forest—would it not be commendable to con- sign to the researches of future antiquarians an institution which is even now BO mischievous, and which during the centuries of its existence has only been fruit-. ful of unmitigated evil ?
The revenue from Crown Lands in 1847 amounted to 120,000/ ; and it is stated by Lord Morpeth to have been stationary for about the last ten years, though a gradual increase may be expected from the house property in London. The quit- rents derivable from Ireland amount to 55,0001. a year. (Quest. 246.)
My next letter will relate to the business of the office of the Solicitor of the Board; and I propose subsequently to describe the administration of a forest, and to illustrate its operation in the New Forest, and in Whittlewood, Whichwood,sand
Waltham Forests. T. F.
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