THE COMMITTEE ON COMMONS. 37 



authority of the Statute of Merton would be entirely 

 inconsistent with the more comprehensive legislation of the 

 present day. With agricultural districts they have no concern 

 in their present inquiry; but with regard to Commons near 

 large towns, as these latter have rapidly increased in population, 

 the necessity of providing open spaces for health and recreation 

 has become paramount to the mere improvement of those lands in 

 an agricultural sense ; and seeing that the inevitable result of 

 the inclosure by private individuals of lands in the populous 

 suburbs of the metropolis would be not even agricultural 

 improvement, but building, they have no hesitation in 

 coming to the conclusion that it is time the Statute 

 of Merton should be repealed. It may be that, owing to the 

 very enjoyment by the public of the Commons in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the metropolis, these spaces have become unpro- 

 ductive as pastures, and that much evidence of the rights 

 formerly exercised by the Commoners has become lost. In such 

 cases it might fairly be argued that the Commoners, by their 

 acquiescence in the public enjoyment, had virtually transferred 

 their rights to the public; and it might not be unjust that the 

 Legislature should sanction and confirm such transfer rather 

 than that the Lords should reap the benefit of the lapse of the 

 Commoners' rights." 



The Committee further recommended that no in- 

 closures should be authorised within the Metropolitan 

 Police area under the provisions of the Inclosure Act of 

 1845, and they condemned the scheme of purchase put 

 forward by the Metropolitan Board. 



"If," they said, "the Legislature should adopt the recom- 

 mendation not to authorise any further inclosurcs within the 

 Metropolitan area, we do not seethe necessity for the immediate 

 expenditure of so large a sum of public money as such purchase 



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