V AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES 89 



way be increased, and, if enclosure was followed by some 

 depopulation, the existence of a standing army removed 

 one of the most serious objections raised against the enclo- 

 sures of the sixteenth century, that by such depopulation 

 the number of those fitted to serve in time of war was 

 dangerously diminished. 



It is, ho doubt, true that all these classes the landlord, 

 the large farmer, the tithe-owner were personally interested 

 in the change, and that their interests blinded them to 

 some of the less beneficial results. Yet in justice we must 

 allow that the landowning classes were also actuated by 

 a real belief that the movement would benefit the whole 

 nation a belief in which they were supported by many of 

 the best heads of the day. Thus Bentham speaks of enclo- 

 sures, of the waste at least, as happy conquests of peaceful 

 industry, noble aggrandizements which inspire no alarm 

 and provoke no enemies. 1 We shall return to this point 

 later. Suffice it here to say that for these reasons enclosure, 

 which, as Mr. Gonner has shown in a late number of the 

 Historical Review, 2 had been going on continuously, though 

 not at a uniform rate, from the Restoration onwards now 

 proceeded at an accelerated pace. 



To meet this desire a more expeditious method is adopted. 

 Hitherto enclosures had been effected by agreements 

 ratified by the Court of Chancery, or by Royal Licence 

 if Crown interests were involved. Now Parliament itself 

 comes to the aid of enclosure by allowing it to be done by 

 Private Acts of Parliament. As early as 1545 an Act had 

 been passed for the partition of Hounslow Heath because 

 ' barrenness is the mother of dearth ', and 3 and 4 Edward VI 

 repealed the Statute of Merton and affirmed the lords' 



1 Bentham, Works, i. 342, viii. 449. 

 a English Hist. Review, vol. xxiii. 477. 



