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CHAPTER XX. 



Tub Repeal of the Statute of Merton. 



It was shown in an early chapter that the Committee of 

 the House of Commons, on London Commons, in 1865, 

 advised by a large majority, as the first and most 

 important step for securing them to the public, that the 

 Statute of Merton should be repealed. They contended 

 that the Statute, originally passed in the interest of 

 agriculture, had long ago ceased to have this justification ; 

 that for centuries it had been recognised by most, if not 

 all lawyers, that inclosures could not safely or justly, 

 with regard to all the interests concerned, be made 

 under it, or without the special sanction of Parliament ; 

 that the proposition urged on behalf of the Lords that 

 the non-user of rights of pasture over Commons, near 

 London or elsewhere, had amounted to an abandonment 

 of them, and that the Lords had practically become 

 owners in fee of the land, free from any rights, was 

 unsound and would not be maintained, if inclosure was 

 resisted in the Law Courts ; that the temptation to 

 revive the obsolete Statute for the purpose of convertiug 

 the London Commons into building land should be 

 removed ; and that Lords of Manors should not be 

 allowed arbitrarily to inclose portions of Commons 

 under the Statute, trusting to the Commoners being 



