140 EPPING FOREST. 



whatever; which would, if enforced at all, have to be enforced in 

 opposition to the claims of the Lords of the Manors, of copy- 

 holders, and of others, claims which were perfectly defensible, 

 which the proprietors had vested in them, and of which they could 

 not be deprived except by the ordinary mode of passing- an Act of 

 Parliament, and by giving them compensation, or by adopting 

 those friendly contracts following upon negotiations with which 

 honourable members were familiar."* 



He then pointed, out the shadowy nature of the 

 rights of the Crown in that portion of the Forest where 

 they still subsisted ; that the deer, for whose protection 

 they were intended, had disappeared; and that in order to 

 maintain and enforce these rights, it would be necessary 

 to reinstate the special Courts in the Forest, by which 

 alone the Forest laws could be enforced, and which had 

 practically ceased to exist. 



In spite of the difficulties thus urged by the Law 

 Officer, the feeling of the House was so strongly in 

 favour of something being done to preserve the Forest, 

 that the Government was compelled to yield to it, and 

 Mr. Gladstone assented to the motion, substituting, 

 however, words in the proposed address, to the effect 

 that measures should be taken for the preservation of 

 the Forest, for the words aiming at the enforcement of 

 the forestal rights of the Crown. 



In consequence of this motion, a Bill was later in the 

 .same session introduced by the late Mr. Ayrton, then 

 First Commissioner of Works, which proposed to 

 deal with the Forest. It was the result of negotiations 



.-> 



Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 199, p. 259. 



