106 ENCLOSURES 



I 



I, 



was immediately or necessarily followed by consolidation, 

 unless the circumstances of time and place were favourable. 

 Enclosure removed the obstacles, and thus facilitated con 

 solidation, but did not do much more. 



Enclosure was, moreover, unavoidable, and the worst 

 that can be said of the enclosing movement, whether of 

 the common field or of the waste is, not that it was in 

 itself undesirable, but that sufficient care was not taken to 

 secure better compensation for the small commoner and, 

 perhaps, for the cottager, though in. any case their allot- 

 ments must have been small. There seems, indeed, some 

 injustice in the Christian statement that to him that hath 

 shall be given. But then, some of us have found it hard 

 to realize the strict justice of the multiplication table. 

 Why should twice one be only two and twice fifty 100 ? 

 Nay, why should a million times nothing still be nothing ? 

 VThe larger yeoman at least was benefited rather than 

 injured by enclosure. The allotment he received out of the 

 waste was considerable, while he had everything to gain 

 by the disappearance of the common field. Above him stood 

 the small squire or lord of the manor, who gained much 

 more, and was, indeed, often the prime mover. 



Enclosures then, should be looked upon rather as a 

 symptom of a desire to consolidate; as a necessary pre- 

 liminary, rather than as the true cause of consolidation. 

 It is when we have decided what these causes were, that 

 we shall be able to explain why in England the small 

 owner has to a great extent disappeared, while he s 

 survives on the continent. 



still 



in such manors where improvements are to be made by enclosing, 

 E. Laurence, The Duty of a Steward, p. 37. 



