338 ATTACKS BY RAILWAY COMPANIES. 



most beautiful part of the New Forest ; this also was suc- 

 cessfully opposed, with the aid of Sir William Harcourt. 



Numerous other cases of the same kind occurred. It 

 came at last to be understood by railway companies that 

 they had far better come to terms with the Commons 

 Society, than attempt to fight it in the House of 

 Commons. The Society in its negotiations with com- 

 panies, has insisted that, where possible, new lines of 

 railways should altogether avoid passing through 

 Commons, especially when in the neighbourhood of 

 towns ; that where such a course was inevitable, the 

 line should be constructed either in a tunnel or on 

 the principle of " cut and cover," so as to avoid 

 disfiguring the Common ; and that where as was often 

 the case small parts of Commons were required, the 

 companies should undertake to add equivalent land in 

 other directions so as to avoid reducing their areas. 



The Society has also come into conflict with powerful 

 Corporations. In 1878 the Corporation of Manchester 

 proposed a scheme for taking Lake Thirlmere, in 

 Cumberland, as a reservoir for the suppty of water to 

 their city, and it also proposed to expropriate a great area 

 of Commons in the adjoining hills as a collecting ground 

 for the water. The public had always enjoyed access to 

 these open spaces, and it would have been possible for the 

 Corporation, by acquiring these lands, to exclude them 

 in the future. By threatening opposition, the Society 

 induced the Corporation to insert a clause in their Bill 

 to the effect "that the access heretofore enjoyed on the 

 part of the public and tourists to the mountains and 



