A COMMUNISTIC SOCIETY 121 



undeniable Equity That the Common People ought to dig, plow, plant, 

 and dwell upon the Commons, without hiring them or paying Rent to 

 any. He was, he says, opposed by none save " one or two covetous 

 freeholders that would have all the commons to themselves, and 

 that would uphold the Norman tyranny over us, which by the 

 victory that you have got over the Norman successor is plucked 

 up by the roots and therefore ought to be cast away." In other 

 words, the effect of the Civil War and of the defeat of Charles I., as 

 interpreted by his school of thought, was to estabHsh the rights of 

 the people to " have the land freed from the entanglement of lords, 

 lords of manors, and landlords, which are our taskmasters," " to 

 enter on their inheritance," and "dig, plow, plant and dwell upon the 

 Commons " without rent, and improve them " f or a public treasury 

 and livehhood." Instead of the existing law, the rule was to be 

 established of " First come, first served." For this appropriation 

 and improvement of the commons the inspiration of the " Lamb 

 of Righteousness " was claimed, so long as the new possessors were 

 Winstanley and his communistic society ; but the same processes 

 were the direct suggestion of the " Dragon of Unrighteousness," if 

 the work was carried out by the adjacent owners and cultivators 

 of the soil. In either case, whoever was the encloser, the general 

 pubhc gained no advantage ; the pasture commons were ploughed, 

 enclosed, and appropriated to individuals. 



The episode is significant. Probably Winstanley had, and has, 

 sympathisers. But the views of those practical agriculturists, who 

 were interested in the enclosure and tillage of open-fields and 

 commons in order to accelerate farming progress, were less revolu- 

 tionary. Had they been carried into effect, much social loss might 

 have been averted. From the purely commercial side, their argu- 

 ments in favour of converting open-field land into separate holdings 

 and of enclosing the commons and wastes were overwhelming. 

 There need be no depopulation, for tillage would be increased. If 

 the rights of commoners were respected, the social drawbacks to 

 the change might be removed. The whole question was assuming 

 a new form. The improvements in arable farming suggested by 

 Stewart and Commonwealth Moi-iters minimised the social loss caused 

 by enclosures, at the same time that they magnified the economic 

 waste of the open-field system. 



Tudor farmers had treated arable and pasture farming as two 

 distinct branches, which could not be combined. On open-field 



