304 THE RURAL POPULATION, 1780-1813 



industrial changes and the operation of the Poor Law, were disas- 

 trous to a large number of open-field farmers, cottagers, and 

 commoners who had lost their hold upon the land. The strongest 

 argument against enclosures was the material and moral damage 

 inflicted upon the poor. 



In comparatively rare instances commoners who exercised com- 

 mon-rights were not put to strict proof of their legal title. Even 

 where this lenient pohcy was adopted, or where the right was 

 established at law, the claim was often supposed to be satisfied by 

 the gift of a sum of money, or by an allotment of land. Money, 

 to a man who had no power of investment, was a precarious pro- 

 vision, which generally was soon spent. Land was a better sub- 

 stitute ; but the allotment might be too small to repay the cost of 

 fencing, or too distant to be of real benefit ; it was seldom enough 

 for the summer and winter keep of a cow. The land and the cow 

 were often sold together, as soon as, or sometimes before, the 

 award was made. Sometimes, again, legal principles were set 

 aside, and allotments of land, more or less inadequate, were made 

 for cottage building, or for the benefit of the poor of the parish 

 to supply pasture or fuel. But probably less than 5 per cent, of 

 the enclosure Acts made any provision of this kind. 



The injury inflicted on the poor by the loss of their common of 

 pasture, whether legally exercised or not, was indisputably great. 

 It was admitted by those who, on other grounds, were the strongest 

 supporters of enclosures. Arthur Young himself, though he never 

 swerved from his advocacy of large enclosed holdings, had been 

 converted to the principle of an admixture of occupying ownerships 

 for small farmers. His travels in France had shown him the 

 " magic of property " at work. In England he had witnessed its 

 effects in the Isle of Axholme. " In respect of property," he 

 writes,^ " I know nothing more singular respecting it, than its 

 great division in the isle of Axholm. In most of the towns there, 

 for it is not quite general, there is much resemblance of some rich 

 parts of France and Flanders. The inhabitants are collected in 

 villages and hamlets ; and almost every house you see, except 

 very poor cottages on the borders of commons, is inhabited by a 

 farmer, the proprietor of his farm, of from four or five, and even 

 fewer, to twenty, forty, and more acres, scattered about the open- 

 fields, and cultivated with aU that minutisB of care and anxiety, by 

 ^ Lincolnshire (1799), p. 17. 



