Editorial Notes. 75 



The audacious proposal of the Commissioners to disafforest the 

 whole of the district at length roused a feeling amongst the public 

 which put a stop to these ruinous proceedings, and led to the appoint- 

 ment, in March, 1875, of a Select Committee of the House of Com- 

 mons, of which Mr. Smith was chairman. This committee took a 

 vast amount of evidence, and made a searching and exhaustive 

 inquiry into the condition of affairs in the New Forest, into the opera- 

 tion of the Act of 1851, and " particularly into the operation and 

 effect of the powers of enclosure given by the Act." In the evidence 

 taken before this committee it was stated that whereas there were 

 9,000 acres of large old picturesque timber in 1849, that area had been 

 reduced nearly one-half in 1875, and extensive masses of enclosures 

 were pointed out to them, varying from four to ten miles, with scarcely 

 any roads or openings through them. 



In a recent leader on the bill the Daily News remarks — 



The rolling power of enclosure was, in fact, destroying the natural features 

 of the forest, without any adequate result to compensate for the evil ; and the 

 commoners maintained that the policy of the Commissioners of Woods and 

 Forests was to enclose only the fruitful pasture land, with the express purpose 

 avowed by the Deputy Surveyor of the Forest before a House of Commons 

 Committee in 1854, of destroying the value of their rights so as to facilitate 

 their acquisition t\ hen disafforestation should be resolved on. Happily this 

 Select Committee not only reported against disafforesting the land, but 

 expressly recommended that it should remain open and unenclosed, except to 

 the extent to which it might be expedient to retain the existing right of 

 the Crown to plant trees. This right involves that of enclosing, for a 

 time, certain portions of the land, limited under the existing law to 16,000 

 acres. At present the whole soil of the forest is subject to be enclosed in this 

 way in its turn, but the committee recommended that in future none should be 

 planted but that over which the power of enclosure has already been exercised. 

 "With this limitation, however, they recommend that the Crown should have the 

 power of keeping 16,000 acres under plantation ; the rest of the land to be 

 open, and with the especial provision " that the ancient ornamental woods and 

 trees shall be carefully preserved, and the character of the scenery shall be 

 maintained." It is most satisfactory to find that Mr. W. H. Smith's bill faith- 

 fully embodies these recommendations. It confines the right of future enclosure 

 to the lands over which the scourge has already passed, which form, however, a 

 very large portion of the forest, and it limits the amount to be enclosed at any 

 one time to 16,000 acres. It authorizes the sale or exchange of portions which 

 are intermixed with the lands of other proprietors on condition that the pro- 

 ceeds of the sale are invested in buying other land to be added to the forest; 

 and it reconstitutes the ancient Court of Verderers, and gives them new power 

 to regulate the exercise of the commoners' rights and to prevent encroachment. 

 Practically, therefore, it rescues the New Forest from the spoiler, and puts it 

 under the guardianship of a body which represents those who are most directly 

 concerned in keeping it open for public use. 



The forest, thus dedicated to the public, is to be governed by a Court of 

 Swainmote, which, as we gather from the bill, is not to consist, as in old 

 English forestry, of all the swains or freeholders in the forest, but of the 



