FORESTS BILL.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1926, Page 8

FORESTS BILL.

Several amendments to' the Forest! Amendment Bill havo been mad* by the Lands Committee of the House of Representatives. Reporting to the House yesterday, the chairman of the Committee (Mr. F. F. Hockly) stated that the main amendment was in connection with appeals. Licensees had been put by the Committee in the same position as they were previously, in regard to appeal*. To this effect a new clause had bets inserted as follows:—"All licences and other timber-cutting rights hereby; validated shall hereafter be administered by tho Commissioner of Forests as if they were granted under the principal Act, and ail reference! therein to the Warden1 shall be construed as references to the Commissioner; provided that the. holder of any such license or other timber-cutting rights shall have the same right of appeal (if any) against any decision of the Commissioner as he would have had against a like decision of the Warden." Another now clause had also been inserted providing -that any. application I for renewal made after the expiration of the certificate of reservation should not. be granted unless the Commissioner was satisfied that the failure to apply within the specified time was dne to inadvertence, mistake, or accident.. The time had been reduced from three months to two months. With referonco to a question asked by the Lender of the Opposition* (Mr. H. E. Holland) as to whether local bodies were likely, to lose my; of their revenues, Mr. Hockly stated that the Lands Committee hacT been informed that those would not be interfered with, and that they worild be the, same as previous**.