THE WOODS AND FORESTS INQUIRY OF LAST SESSION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.

7th October 1849.

Sue—The purpose of the abstract of the evidence given before the Committee of the House of Commons on the Woods, Forests, and Land. revenuesof the Crown, which you printed last year, was to exhibit the state, extent, and revenue of the chief forests. A second report of the evidence collected last sea- stun by the same Committee has been published; and it may be disposed of by some remarks under these divisions. 1. The official management in the Commit- tee of the examination of certain witnesses. 2. The character and the result of the inquiry. First. By far the best evidence given to the Committee was that of Mr. J. Trim- mer, one of the gentlemen employed on the Geological Survey of England and Wales. It is distinguished for its accuracy, for the knowledge it exhibits, and for the truthfulness of its particulars. He was entitled to be treated with courtesy and respect. Having given opinions not conformable to what the Right Honourable Mr. Hayter, who in the last session represented the Government in the Committee, thought right, Mr. Hayter thus addressed Mr. Trimmer, (1,978)—" I believe all these remarks of yours in your report, except that with respect to the quantity of land adapted for the growth of oak, are opinions of your own, and not derived from instructions given to you " That a witness should derive his opinions from his instructions, would not be very creditable to him. To be of any value or authority, they should be derived from his inquiries and his knowledge of facts. Mr. Cardwell creditably interfered for the protection of the witness, and asked, (1,983,) "If be did not suppose he was carrying on his inquiry in the ordinary course of his employment under the Geological Survey?" The answer was correctly given—" More with reference to the case of the Woods and Forests than to the Geological Survey in general." Again, Mr. Trimmer having been asked the probable expenses of reducing cer- tain land into cultivation, and having given the moat satisfactory answers, was asked by Mr. Hayter, what certain land " would be worth? " Mr. Trimmer bad. made no calculation, for it had not been ordered; and he replied, " What a tenant " would give for it." " Before," says Mr. Hayter, " you ventured on the assertion, I should have thought you would have made a calculation to justify the correct- ness of it? " It does not appear from the evidence what the assertion " ventured on " was. The examination concluded with this question, put by Mr. Cardwell- " The upshot of your opinion is, that the property of the New Forest is capable of considerable improvement ? " " Yes, I think it is." The best evidence on planting was given by Mr. R. S. Surtees, of Hamsterley Hall, a Magistrate in the counties of Northumberland and Durham. He found fault with the plantations in the Crown woods of Chopwell ; and thereupon Mr. Hayter examined him respecting the terms on which he lived with the resident Crown officer, and endeavoured to establish the fact that there was a quarrel or feud between the parties. (7,515 to 7,522.) If the questions meant anything, they were intended to imply something against the evidence of the witness. No such quarrel appeared to exist; and what Mr. Surtees stated respecting the Crown plantations was coafirmsd by every other witness. Mr. Downes, a land-agent, whose evidence was cited by the Times in the course of the last year, appears to have excited peculiar attention. Mr. Hayter called a wit- nese, Mr. Hay ward, in order to impugn the value of Mr. Downea's evidence ; and he was asked 173 questions relating to the management of—what ?—Lord Cardigan's private property, by Mr. Downes! and subsequently Mr. Downes was asked 322 questions on the seine subject: nearly two days were occupied in this investigation. With reference to Mr. Downes's evidence, Mr. Hayter asked of other witnesses such questions as these: "In what terms should you designate such a statement ?" (0,330)—" Do you believe a word of that? "—" Do you believe Mr. Downes's statement was a bit more true with regard to the value of the land than it was with regard to the value of the timber ?" (5,193, 5,194)—and similar discourteous questions were put. Yet the evidence of Mr. Downes appears to have been as accurate, in general, as could be expected, bearing in mind the circumstances under which he stated his facts were collected. For instance, Mr. Neve, em- ployed by Government, was asked "if the estimate of Mr. Downes relating to the New Forest, which was 1,583,000/., and the estimate of Messrs. Glutton, which as 1,529,0001., both made on a cursory survey, were a tolerably accurate estimate on the part of Mr. Dowries?" The answer was—" Yes, I think it was, on a cursory survey." The estimate of the value of certain lands made by the parties employed by the Office being actually contested by very impartial witnesses. Such was the manner in which witnesses were dealt with ; in one case im- properly—in other cases without edification to the Committee. It gives a charac- ter to the examination which ought to have been most carefully avoided. Second. The policy of the Government respecting the administration of the Crown lands is explained in the Eleventh Report of the Parliamentary Commis- sioners. The annual average consumption of oak timber, in the year 1788, was above 50,000 loads; and it was held, that as private estates could not be relied on for a sufficient supply, a certain quantity of laud belonging to the Crown should be set apart to obtain a supply equal to this amount, and for this purpose 100,000 acres of land would be required. The principles, says Mr. Milne, (5,007,) stated in that report, have been acted on and considered to be the policy of the Government from that time to the present: but, he adds, the quantity of acres acquired from the forest (forests?) and turned into timber, has only been between 40,000 and 50,000 acres.

The Government, therefore, has not one half of the means required for its an- nual supply as estimated in the year 1788, supposing the forests to be in full bear- ing condition.

Now it is unfortunate that the Committee did not take the avowed policy of the Government as the basis of their inquiries, and fairly work out the correctness of it. They would thus have had a distinct aim and object before them, leading to a practical result. Of course, it is not to be inferred that if the whole supply were not obtainable from forest lands, therefore no part of it should be secured from that source. But it was important to ascertain if 50,000 loads is the annual average consump- tion—if it is necessary to have it home grown at the public expense—what part of the amount of timber calculated on is actually obtainable, and the cost of obtain- ing it. Incidental to such inquiries would have been the management of the lands, the abuses in the management of them, and the effect of the system on the interests of the neighbourhood and population of the districts surrounding the forests.

The principal inquiry mentioned has been altogether neglected by the Com- mittee and the more important subordinate inquiries hardly even alluded to. A vast mass of coafficting evidence has been collected from persons who, either voluntarily or by authority, paid flying visits to different portions of the Crown property, and whose opinions are almost worthless.

Mr. Hayter, representing the Government, appears to have regarded the inquiry chiefly as a personal affair, and opened his view of it by having a recital made to him of all the names of the Chief Commissioners from the year 1810. His secondary view of it appears to have been, to prove that the Crown property produces in some in- stances more than formerly, and in other instances as much as is obtainable. Supposing he succeeded in proving what he sought to establish, the main ques-

tio-ls of the inmijity wbieb.ought to have heap investigateekemahimot.merelrun, .soleed but almost. mil...cached. So fails Hie public are interested in it faits-, s.s. the inquiry shall here it permanent v414 after the persona and the naiserable per- senalities-mentionedin it- shall be forgotten, it fails in 'affording the information which it iá most important we should possess: ' It ia impossible to read theileport proposed to the Committee by Lord Duncan, and uhicoately set asides without feeling that he must have been sensible that he hid failed in accomplishing eranething which he had expected would be the result of the labour and diligence which he employed in investigating-numerous details respecting the state of the public lands. The cause of this was, not having at the outset determined the objet e on-Which his attention aboard be 'fixed. It weld hardly have been presumed, when the Committee was-appointed, " that the MOM pressing objects of its appointment centered in the appropriation and im- proved regulation of the &rest districts—in the application of those general prin- ciples which it is the proidnee of Parliament to prescribe, as distinguished from the responsibility devolving on Government under reparations having the authority of law, mid relating simply to the care and management of the property." For the Committee was not to appropriate or regulate the districts; it did not attempt to discover the general principles in relation to them which it is the duty of Parlia- ment to prescribe., nor did it enter into what might have been a really instructive, though most inconveniently, anti-official. and Most difficult investigation, of the limns and the boundaries of the duties of an important public department, not merely acting under fixed rules, but the chief officer of which /9 charged with the exercise of the higher functions -of government.

The Committee, however, took a more modest view of the purposes of its ap- pointment, and voted the almost unintelligible "opinion, that the chief and more pressing objects of their inquiries centered in the appropriation and improved regu- lation of the Forests and Woodlands." How much trouble would have been saved, if, before a single witness had been examined, the Committee had determined what were the questions they were appointed to investigate, or the questions which, un- der their appointment, it were of public importance to investigate. The practical proposals of the Chairman were, that "the policy "pursued with respect to the forests of Alice Holt, Bere, 84c., 'should be applied to other forests; the removal of the deer, and the abolition of the Forest Courts. - And, as conse- quences of the proceedings of the Committee, a Parliamentary Commission has most properly been appointed to inquire respecting the private rights claimed over the New Forest and Weltham Forest and respecting the Forest Courts. The accounts also of the Office, -. which were greatly in arrear and in the most con fused state, have been reduced into order, and are now satisfactory.

As respected the general inquiry, "it has been," says Lord Duncan "the re- corded policy of this kingdom to let apart forests for the-growth of naval timber"; and he says that "the main requirements of that policy have been fulfilled.'

- It was a few years since the recorded policy of this kingdom to give protection to agriculture and to enforce the Navigation-laws. It would have been a most unsatisfactory and imperfect result if the Committees on those subjects had aim-

reported, that the laws relating to them required a few amendments, and that the laws themselves were the recorded policy ot this kingdom. Something more is required to be known..--..is the policy necessary? has the experience of the sixty years since 1788, when it was more distinctly expressed as the principle on which the forests were to be managed, confirmed the calculations of those who directed it? It may be a correct policy, and the evils attending may be its necessary condi- tions. Its cost, its hitherto unfruitfulness the state of the population on the Borders of the great public wastes, the hindemnce to the improvement of a vast part of the county of Hampshire, and its effects on the towns and the coasting- trade of Southampton, Lymington, and Christchurch, may all be proper public atd local contributions to a great end; but to dispose of these matters-by simply

ling that that end is a recorded policy, at once deprives the late inquiries of their chief usefulness. i'-ililie total ntiniber of acres of which the forests and woodlands consist is about 422,000. The income, exclusive of mines, in 1848-9, was 29,8601.; the expendi- ture, 34,6821.; and the excess of expenditure above the income, 4,8211. No naval timber was supplied at this cost of 34,6821. and the rental of the land. Can it, therefore, be said, that the "main requirements of the policy" causing this ex- pirlditure have been "fulfilled"?

Several land-agents were employed-by the Government to give evidence of their own experience on the management of estates, and of their opinions formed in flying visits to the public forests. The only value such evidence could have would have been the verification of the private experience of the witnesses by the resnits of the management of the public lands in the last sixty years. Mr. Posey aPpears, by his suggested amendments to the Report proposed by the Chairman, to feel that from such evidence some such conclusion should have been drawn; hut the official information given failed in enabling him—as it will do any other person, possessing, which is hardly possible, equal industry—to form a correct

Opinion. . ,

...tbse very important suggestion was made by Mr. Posey, and negatived by the Committewhich shows the larger view he at least took of the inquiry than others: "The 'whole," 'stated Mi. Pusey, " of the l's.iew Forest consists of about 66,000 acreS, *hereof aboutl 45,000 are without 'timber. Estimates of the in trinsic value of the land, apart from that.of thetrees, vary from 429,000/. to 1,S98,0u04 Some of this , tract ialrnown to have been cultivated in the days of the Conqueror. Much may be unfit for.planting or culture; but it appears to pont Cenueittec, that an opportunity at least for its improvement and habitation Aortid be once more aftbrded by the allotment of land in severalty to the Crown and other parties baiting rights on this extensive waste." ' It-may possibly be true, as Mr. Ilayter endeavoured to skew, that some of the Crowe lands are morsprofitablethan they were formerly: but how poor a contri- bution,isthis to the solution of the great questions which the inquiry should have comprehended! , The proceedings of the Committee have been of great use though its inquiries have 'signally failed hi most hinPortant respects. In the midst Of a great mass of worthless and irrelevant matter,' much has been ascertained which watdesirable tothave Riede known. For the present,..the whole subject is probably disposed of. Ata future time, a new inquiry will inevitably be undertaken, which may termi- nate more satisfactorily. The °dice of Woods and Forests is a department into which ne Committee of thellonse of Commons had walked Since the passing of the Befortn Act. It has acitelonanibld system: it hat 'been wry' much left alone,' and it was not tube eirpeetenlehatit couldhe fres tali= essay faults;. but-no person-whose opinion is worth noticing can iinpute, as Mr. Hayter imagines, (187, 188,) private motivee toftAin 1G), FrnilqpinersErwhal, they. have done.. .Neither the. present Government ndr Hie ai' tire.:lies deible 'Mi. What they found in Operation. for many yeas, hardlfa r Gliik Co '. Agneeliki remained in office sufficiently long to become matter or Ifs affairs, mad! thwEiiii ofearlislo was' appointed when the inquiry com- menced, -,iThe subordinate offibersivere 'satisfied to work the old machinery in the old way... For. its improvemant,it was necessary to rout up the managers-.,to teach .sluggish mid supercilious .gentlemen to do more than mere routine work, .and to give an earnest attention and devotion to the business of their office. Were this the case, the almost interininahle' correspondence of the office Would be shortened, and would-be more satiefeethty than fehas been • and instead of there being only one man in the Office, besidearthe Chief Commasioner, aCquainted with its-affairs who can be intimated to explain them,:thesu would- be many.. - ' The evidence ef Mr, Commieeigner Core is nail) the bine boc/c though it was reported to the House on the 26th of July, "together iftli the _Report and Minutes of Evidence recommitted to the Coaimittee.". "-- ' • - F.