BUBAL COMMONS. 277 



and other towns, within such limits to purchase, or take 

 by gift, rights of common, and to hold them in gross, 

 with a view to the maintenance and improvement of 

 Commons under regulating schemes. 



I did not profess that the measure went so far as I 

 personally desired, but proposed it as the maximum which 

 was possible, under the then state of public opinion. It 

 was referred to a Select Committee, of which Sir W. 

 Harcourt, Fawcett, and myself were members, and by 

 a large majority of which it was substantially approved; 

 but it was not possible to carry the Bill further that 

 year in consequence of the press of other business. 

 In the following year it was introduced in the House of 

 Lords, in the shape in which it had been settled by the 

 Committee, and it formed the subject of long discussions 

 in that House on several occasions. The clause requir- 

 ing that one-tenth of the Common proposed to be 

 inclosed, up to fifty acres, should be assigned for public 

 purposes, for recreation or labourers' allotments, was 

 specially singled out for hostile criticism. Lord Salis- 

 bury said of it : 



" The Lord of a Manor and his Commoners were 

 entitled to ask from Parliament the means of obtaining 

 a full enjoyment of their rights, and Parliament was 

 now asked to interpose and levy blackmail upon 



them It was certainly spoliation to enact 



that, when the Lord and the Commoners desired to 

 inclose, they should be forced to concede to other persons 

 rights which were perfectly new."* 



* Hansard, vol. 212, p. 1507. 



