FOREST OF DEAN. 261 



stated that the existing plantation was in a thriving 

 condition, varying in age from ten to seventy years, 

 and that in about fifty years a large proportion of them 

 would reach maturity. The Committee did not con- 

 sider that it would be expedient to destroy or alienate 

 the existing oak plantations, or any large part of them ; 

 but that, as far as possible, the sales of land should be 

 confined to the outskirts of the Forest, and to the 

 vicinity of existing houses. 



In the following year, 1875, a Bill was introduced 

 by the late Mr. W. H. Smith, then Secretary to the 

 Treasury, for the purpose of carrying these recommend- 

 ations into effect. It was in fact an Inclosure Bill. It 

 gave power to the Crown to ascertain and buy off the 

 Commoners' rights, and to convert the Forest into its 

 absolute property. As regards the Free Miners, it 

 proposed that in future no fresh gales should be 

 granted, and that the Crown should be empowered 

 to buy up and extinguish existing gales. 



It very soon appeared that the Committee of 1874 

 had been entirely misled as to the feeling of the people 

 of the district, on the subject of their rights of common 

 over the Forest, and as to the maintenance of the rights 

 of Free Miners. Indignation meetings were held in 

 the district to protest against the Bill. Numerous 

 petitions were presented against it by the Free Miners 

 and the Commoners, and the Commons Society was 

 appealed to, to assist in defeating the measure The 

 Society, while not averse to giving power to the Crown 

 to provide for the necessities of the district by selling 



