on the Attaran, Thaung-yin, and Salwín rivers, had been ceded to the East India Company in 1826. At first, the Attaran forests had been worked on Government account; but in May, 1829, the failure of the experiment of cutting and exporting timber for the Calcutta market had induced the Government to throw open the forests under a code of rules to private enterprise. Licences were given to cut timber to a number of European and native speculators. The desire to profit by the trade in timber overruled all considerations for the future. The Maulmain timber trade flourished; but the forests were rapidly destroyed, By 1840 the mischief had become so serious as to lead, in the ensuing year, to revision of the rules of 1829. In 1841 a Superintendent of Forests was appointed; but in 1846 Captain Guthrie, the Forest Superintendent of that day, found that the rules were still disregarded; and, with the support of Captain Durand, the Commissioner, put in force certain measures of repression. These led to conflict between the administration and the merchants. Resumption of the licences which had been abused, and the substitution of Government management for the licensing system, formed the policy of the Commissioner; the Maulmain merchants and the Calcutta press stormed against it. Eventually it was disapproved by the Deputy Governor in Calcutta, who, in the absence of Lord Hardinge, the Governor-General, then in the Punjab, was the authority before whom the question came. Sir Herbert Maddock declared that it was not the intention
