ATTACKS BY BA1LWAY COMPANIES. 335 



country, contained any objectionable proposals in this 

 direction. It was an impossible task to search through 

 the Books of Reference and deposited Bills, with a view 

 to discover whether an}' Commons were threatened. To 

 obviate this difficulty, I moved, in 1877, an amendment 

 to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, 

 requiring promoters of private Bills to advertise, in the 

 London Gazette and in local papers, whether they 

 proposed to take any portions of Commons for their 

 works, and to state the extent which it was sought to 

 acquire, and also to deposit plans with the Home Office, 

 showing the details of the appropriation. The House of 

 Commons willingly assented to the Standing Order. 

 It had an immediate and important effect in disclosing 

 the nature and extent of the invasions by promoters of 

 all kinds on Commons, in every part of the country, 

 and in enabling the Commons Society to take measures 

 for opposing and preventing them. 



In every succeeding year it appeared that there 

 were very large numbers of such schemes, more or less 

 interfering with and injuring Commons, amounting in 

 1880 and 1881 to forty and forty-one respectively, and in 

 other years to somewhat smaller numbers. These were 

 submitted to careful examination by the Society, and 

 formed the subject of local inquiry. Communications 

 were made with the local authorities and people of the 

 districts thus threatened, and negotiations were entered 

 into with the promoters. 



There are very few Commons near London which 

 have not been menaced, during the last twenty years, 



