ing the repeated acts of resumption passed under William the Second, Henry and Stephen. And similar acts were found necessary in almost every subsequent reign in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There were, however, many exceptions from those acts; and thus the private revenues of the crown became more and more inadequate to the burthens they had to support. Henry V. had only 56,9667. per annum, Henry VI. only 50517., and consequently acts of resumption were passed in the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV. and Henry VII. The annual rent of the monasteries, suppressed by Henry VIII., and seized by him for his own use, amounted at the time to 273,000l., and were estimated in 1792 at 6,000,000Z. of annual rent; but nearly the whole of these were granted away again by the king, and he left the revenue lower than he found it. The policy of Elizabeth, which induced her from time to time to dispose of parts of her domains, rather than incur the unpopularity of demanding supplies from her subjects; the unbounded profuseness of James I. to his favourites; the sacrifices made by his unfortunate son, in endeavouring to govern without parliaments, and the civil wars which ensued, made still further inroads on the crown property, and the remainder, still considerable, was nearly entirely disposed of under the Protectorate. These sales were made void on the Restoration; but yet much was lost to the crown through concealments and through forbearance to bonâ fide purchasers, or to such as had favoured the Restoration. About the same time, the permanent peace establishment of 1,200,000l. per annum was voted; the seignorial rights and profits of the crown being abolished, and the value of the royal domains reckoned as part of the revenue of the crown at 195,000l. per annum. Charles II., James II. and William III., still continued, from profusion or policy, the system of former reigns, and bills were constantly brought forward by one party for the resumption of the lands granted by the crown; by the other for restraining of any future grants. The ministry generally supported the former class of bills, and opposed the latter. The crown lands, as has been observed, were destined not to support the dignity of the monarch or the public expenses of his government, but for his private expenses, either in personal expenditure, or in gratuities and rewards to favourites and useful servants. Every attempt to obtain an act

1 (Viz.) Land, annual value 120,000l. at ten years' purchase Forests and houses belonging to the crown

See Sir John Sinclair's Hist. of Revenue.

£1,200,000 650,000

£1,850,000

by which his power of alienation might be restrained, was therefore naturally opposed by those who thought themselves the most probable objects of his bounty. We may likewise remark a very important change which took place during the period from the Conquest to the Revolution, in the nature of the trust reposed in the crown, and the security preserved by the subject. During many ages in the early part of that period, the crown had an independent revenue, adequate to all the expenses of the government, but our ancestors had the arms in their own hands. Whereas in the latter part of the same period the arsenals, magazines, fleets and armies, came necessarily to be entrusted to the sovereign, while the far greater part of the money required for the support of the dignity of the crown, and all that was necessary to provide for the defence of the kingdom, was on the other hand kept in the power of the subject.1

Immediately upon the accession of Queen Anne, the economical party, who had so long sought to tie up this source of corruption and peculation, succeeded in carrying the Civil List Act, which took from the crown the power of granting leases of houses for a longer term than fifty-six years, or of lands for more than thirtyone years or three lives; and the bill of resumption, by which it had been intended to place fresh rewards for servility at the disposal of the ministers, was dropped. Nor has there been any act of resumption since the sixteenth century, when the revenues had at length been so much diminished that they could no longer be expected to answer their original purpose. The crown land revenues or rents reserved were by this time reduced to but 4827. 16s. 74d. net in England, and 2271. 8s. 114d. in Wales.

The Civil List Act, however, did not produce the results which the advocates of the measure had anticipated. Whatever the extent to which the estates of the crown had been previously to that act, either openly given away or under pretence of a sale surreptitiously bestowed at an undervalue upon favourites of the monarch or creatures of the minister, yet while they remained the property of the crown, there was at any rate some degree of prudence and attention bestowed upon their management. The better condition the estates were in, the more money, it was obvious, would be obtained by a sale of them for the necessities of the monarch, or the greater favour would be bestowed if they were given away. Their good management was therefore an object deemed worthy the attention of our kings and of their ministers.

1 Blackst. 287; 12 Rep. Comm. Land Revenue, 1786. 2 1 Ann. c. 7.

But by the Civil List Act (1 Ann. c. 7) that source of influence and supply, and along with it the inducement to give the estates any care or management, was cut off. Had the estates been let at their full value, according to the provisions of the act, the revenue might have improved; but as no sale could take place, no funds could be supplied for the immediate wants of the crown; no dependent could be enriched at the expense of the nation.

It was not long, however, before the whole system which had been in vogue before the Civil List Act was again in full force, with nearly the same destructive consequences to the annual revenue, and with still more fatal effects upon the lands themselves, the poor remnants of the once princely domains of the crown. The first attempts were made within a very few years, when ministers began to obtain for their friends grants of parts of these lands in perpetuity under the sanction of particular acts of parliament. The publicity of this mode rendered it very inconvenient, as every bill was certain to excite repeated attention, and a more quiet method was soon discovered. The act had provided that in no case of any lease, less than the ancient or most usual rent should be reserved; but if the lands had not been before in lease, then not less than one-third of the full improved annual value, leaving the rest to be made up by the clumsy and wasteful expedient of a fine; in this case, particularly clumsy and wasteful, as no provision was in fact made to prevent the fine being wholly remitted, or, if taken, it might be calculated at any rate of interest the minister at the time might direct. Accordingly the commissioners of 1786 found that in every instance the lowest possible rent had been reserved, the longest term of years granted, and the computation of the fine had always been made at the highest rate of interest. Not satisfied with five per cent., seven, nine and even ten per cent. was the ordinary rate in many instances, and the amount calculated at compound interest. Such a transaction is, in fact, nothing else than a sale of a reversionary right, discounting the present worth after the rate of nine or ten per cent. compound interest; extravagant, though intelligible, if the vendor were a young heir in the hands of Jews; scandalous, incredible, in the ministers of a government which could at all times borrow at the rate of three or four per cent.1 The results of the system

As an example of the ruinously low prices thus obtained, suppose a beneficial lease worth to the tenant 100l. per annum, of which twenty years are unexpired, the fine for thirty additional years would at ten per cent. only amount to 140l.; or if thirty years were unexpired, the fine or price for twenty additional years would be but 601.-12th Report Commissioners Land Revenue, 1786.

are detailed in the Report of the Commissioners referred to below. For, the ancient and modern rents reserved on the whole averaging one-eighth of the improved annual value, and the other seven-eighths being taken by fines; it appeared that on the average of sixteen years, from 1769 to 1786, the government received twice as much from the one-eighth reserved by way of rent as from the seven-eighths paid by fines; the respective amounts being, for the one-eighth annual rent 13,6627. on those sixteen years, and in respect of fines 70781. only: although on an average of years, fines, if properly and fairly taken, ought to be equal to the amount of annual rents which they profess to represent.

There

As the

The management of the forest lands was even worse. a bad system was carried out in the worst manner. commissioners of 1786 observed, a mode of payment of salaries and emoluments could hardly have been devised more dangerous to the interests entrusted to the care of the surveyor general. The nominal salaries being small, the surveyor retained great part of the allowances made to him for his deputies and assistants; and an underpaid staff followed without fear or shame the example of their chief. The fees of the surveyor too, five per cent. on all receipts and expenditures and on the produce of all woods cut, and fees for every tree cut for the use of the navy, were so many direct premiums for profusion in the expenditure without regard to utility, and to felling timber without regard to improvement.

The difficulty of managing large properties, especially of woodlands, appears however to be gradually yielding to the progress of modern times. The means of communication, new roads and inclosures, scientific investigations above and beneath the surface, are gradually wearing out the almost savage ignorance and barbarism which seems to have pervaded the royal forests but a few generations back; and when mismanagement is discovered, it excites deeper and more general indignation, and punishment follows more swiftly and more surely, so that culprits are naturally less bold and frequent than before;1 and we think that the whole case as it stands at present is summed up with tolerable fairness by the Select Commissioners in their Report:2

1 We think this is in the main true, although there are certainly some remarkable and striking exceptions. Thus Major Freeman, the government inspector, sent down to examine into the state of the New Forest in 1848-9, was burnt in effigy right off Lyndhurst, Mr. White, the Lord Warden's deputy, actually supplying fuel from the Royal Forest for the purpose. The report as presented

2 Draft Report, 1849; Parliamentary Papers, xv. does not seem to be yet in print. And see ante, p. 1.

"Instances of laxity on the part of the local agents of the board have presented themselves in the course of evidence, extending over the transactions of many years, and involving a very multifarious and minute expenditure of monies. During the long continued illness of the immediate representative of the board in New Forest, and through the agency of persons more immediately subjected to his control, and therefore more immediately responsible to his authority, frauds, it is apprehended, have been committed to a considerable extent in that forest, attended with much pecuniary loss. The ill-advised selection of an officer for the local management of Salcey Forest upon its enclosure in 1828, appears to have resulted in proceedings equally reprehensible in their character and lamentable in their results. Your committee are not disposed to underrate the importance of these occurrences, but upon the whole they think they are justified in regarding them as exceptions to the general course of management, and as owing in some measure to the numerous and sometimes conflicting duties which have of late years been imposed upon the department."

The above observations are confined to the mode in which the actual powers of the office of Woods and Forests are exercised, and a slight sketch of the history of the office and how those powers have arisen. It is an additional question whether the objects which the present arrangements have in view are attainable or worth attaining; and another question again, whether the present arrangements and the present powers be sufficient to secure those objects; and still another, whether the nature of the estates and interests now claimed in the Royal Forests be not such as to demand the immediate interference of the legislature. As to the first of these questions, the main object, at least as regards the part properly called "Woods and Forests,' is avowedly the maintenance of a sufficient supply of timber for the royal navy, an object which every successive parliamentary committee has declared expedient to be aimed at and practicable to be obtained; though, on the other hand, it is broadly asserted in the "ordinary channels of information" that it is inexpedient in theory and unattainable in practice. And for the second and third of the above questions.-Since the foregoing observations have been in type, there has been published a "Report of the Royal New and Waltham Forests Commission,"1 founded upon the admirable Subreport of the secretary, J. B. Hume, Esq., which is annexed to the Report, being, in fact, a right learned treatise, in which the whole forest laws and the circumstances in which royal forests are now situated are reviewed at much greater length than could possibly be accorded to ourselves here. Pp. 66-under 12oz., price 8d.

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