276 BUBAL COMMONS. 



Wisley ; and the other, because the provision of a single 

 acre for recreation, out of 1,800 proposed to be inclosed, 

 appeared to them to be wholly inadequate. Subject to 

 these exclusions, the Inclosure Bill was pushed on by 

 the Government of the day, in spite of Fawcett's oppo- 

 sition, and was ultimately carried. 



Owing to the recommendation of the Select Com- 

 mittee that inclosures should be suspended until the 

 General Act had been amended, several schemes were 

 stopped for the time. It was not till 1871 that the 

 question again came on the tapis of Parliament. In 

 that year I was for a short time Under Secretary for the 

 Home Office, and in that capacity I had to deal with 

 the subject of Commons. I accordingly introduced a 

 Bill, founded on the recommendations of the Committee 

 of 1869, and going much beyond them on several 

 important points. It proposed that where inclosure of 

 a Common was authorised, it should be only on the 

 condition of an assignment to the public, either for re- 

 creation purposes, or for allotments, of one-tenth of the 

 Common, where the acreage was 500 and under, and 

 where above this, of not less than fifty acres, or more 

 than one-tenth of it. It further proposed to prohibit 

 altogether the inclosure of Commons within a certain 

 distance of towns, varying between one mile for a 

 town of 5,000 inhabitants, and six miles for one of 

 200,000 inhabitants. It extended, within these limits, 

 the provisions of the Metropolitan Commons Act of 

 1866 for the regulation of Commons. It contained an 

 important clause, enabling local authorities of London, 



