20 HIS TOBY OF COMMONS. 



the land, and for this purpose to inclose such Commons 

 and wastes of Manors as were suitable for cultivation, 

 greatly increased. It was recognised that it was a 

 matter of national importance and almost of safety 

 to add to the area of cultivated land. Prom the date 

 of the fall of the Stuarts, when England began to 

 intervene more actively in the affairs of the Continent, 

 and was seldom for many years without the luxury 

 of a foreign war, till the adoption of Free Trade in 

 1846, there was no hesitation or doubt as to the policy 

 of promoting inclosures. Under more than 4,000 

 separate Inclosure Acts, upwards of 7,175,000 acres 

 of Commons or common fields were inclosed. 



The addition of so large an area to the cultivated 

 land of England and Wales, was doubtless of consider- 

 able advantage, by adding to its productive power, and 

 by affording additional employment for labourers in 

 rural districts. But it was not an unmixed benefit. 

 From the manner in which these inclosures were carried 

 out they had other and opposite effects. It is now 

 generally admitted that they were a large cause of the 

 extinction of the class of small yeomen, cultivating their 

 own land. The holdings of these men were of such a 

 size, that the rights attaching to them, of turning out 

 cattle on the waste lands, were of the greatest importance, 

 and indeed indispensably necessary, to their successful 

 cultivation. When these rights were detached from 

 the holdings, and were compensated for in money or b} r 

 allotments of land at some distance, the holdings could 

 no longer be cultivated at a profit. The owners were 



