1. These Appeals and Second Appeals arise out of decisions of the Forest Settlement Officer rejecting the claims made by certain wargdars in South Canara to tracts of forest land which Government proposed to reserve as Government Reserved Forest under the Forest Act of 1882.

2. The important question of principle that is raised is with regard to the right of Government in the forest and other waste lands of the District. Is it similar to that which is now well established in the other Districts of the Presidency, omitting Malabar; that is to say, is there a general presumption that forest and waste land not exclusively occupied by any person or body of persons, is the property of Government? Or, is the presumption similar to that which is now established in Malabar, viz., that such lands, like all other lands, are presumed to belong to some private person or family ? Or, is the true position that there is no presumption at all either one way or the other, and that the onus of establishing the claim lies in each case on the Government or the person who makes the claim;

3. The British Government took over the administration of the country in 1799 after the defeat and death of Tippu Sultan at Seringapatam, and Munro was sent to report on its condition and to administer it in 1800. In the course of that year he made three most valuable reports which are the chief source of the information, and often of the opinions, of succeeding administrators. It is certain that Munro and some of the early British administrators who took their opinions from him refer to "all land" in Canara as being "private land" held on ancient and indefeasible titles. But it is equally certain that they were not thinking of the great tracts of immemorial forest on the Western Ghats and elsewhere in the District and there is not a single expression in their reports which specially refers to these tracts which form so large a portion and so important a feature of the District as a whole. Writing in 1894 Mr. Sturrock says: "South Canara is essentially a Forest District. The slopes of the Western Ghats from north to south are clothed with dense forests of magnificent timber and the forest growth, stimulated by the heavy rainfall, approaches to within a few miles of the coast" in two specified places, but "generally the heavy forest begins from 20 to 30 miles from the coast * * Even on the plains, however, a large portion, of the Uppinangadi Taluq is covered with heavy forest, and jungle varying from moderate forest to mere scrub is to be found everywhere throughout an exceptionally largo area of waste land" (Manual of the South Canara District, p. 15).

4. Munro and the early administrators were specially concerned with the land revenue assessment of the District, and their reports in regard to it must be read as referring to the occupied land which yielded revenue, not to the great tracts of immemorial forests which yielded none. We know that "Tippu introduced rules of draconic severity for the conservancy of sandalwood for his revenue and teak for his navy" (Sturrocks Manual of South Canara District, p. 16). The Madras Government almost immediately after the conquest of the country was complete, that is to say, on the 25th April 1807, issued a proclamation announcing that the Court of Directors had resolved to assume the sovereignty of the forests in Canara and that an officer (Captain Johnston) had been appointed to see that no injury was done to them and that all persons were "prohibited from cutting or destroying trees in the teak forests.... or from taking away the young plants."

5. As regards this proclamation the Bombay High Court justly observes " The resolution of the Court of Directors could not, of course, give it a sovereignty which it did not possess already; it was in virtue of a sovereignty already existing that the proclamation was made. What it obviously meant was that the Court being sovereign by delegation and thus vested with the eminent d