ATTACKS BY RAILWAY COMPANIES. 333 



Committees, to whom railway schemes were referred, 

 had their attention directed to the injury done to public 

 interests by the destruction of the value of Commons, 

 or took any steps to protect them. To reject the whole 

 of a scheme for a new line of railway, necessary for the 

 advantage of the people at either end, because at one 

 point it did injury to the public by intersecting a 

 Common, would appear to most Committees a very 

 serious responsibility. 



The Commons Society determined, at the outset 

 of its proceedings, to do its utmost to oppose and 

 prevent such invasions in the future, and to make 

 promoters of railways understand that it was their 

 interest to avoid injury to Commons, if they hoped 

 to carry their schemes. Railway companies were not 

 the only offenders in this direction. Local authorities 

 not unfrequently cast their eyes upon open spaces, with 

 a view to convert them into sewage farms,* cemeteries, 

 and water works, at a cost less than would have to be 

 paid for inclosed lands. It was necessary to control 

 these bodies, and to enlighten local opinion as to the 

 importance of restraining the authorities from doing 

 permanent injury to their Commons. 



It was determined to attack such schemes in the 



* On the eve of the transfer of Lord Spencer's rights in Wim- 

 bledon Common to the public, the Wimbledon Local Board (on 

 which were some prominent members of the Local Commons Preserva- 

 tion Committee) proposed to acquire 300 acres of the Common for a 

 sewage farm, and the proposal might probably have been carried, 

 had not the Crown as a Commoner interfered by litigation to 

 prevent it. 



