344 STATUTE OF MERTON. 



unwilling or unable to bear the heavy cost of resisting 

 them by legal proceedings. 



The Government of the day unfortunately refused 

 to adopt this advice and to repeal the Statute of Merton. 

 There followed the long series of aggressions on 

 Commons which have been described in this work. The 

 Lords of Manors did their utmost to put in force their 

 doctrines, and, by inclosing, to realise the great differ- 

 ence between the value of the Commons, as waste land, 

 and as building sites. There resulted that which the 

 Committee of 1865 expected and predicted. In every 

 case of attempted inclosure, some public-spirited persons 

 Avere found to undertake the cause of the Commoners, 

 and indirectly of the public, and to contest the legality 

 of the inclosures. Years passed by while this protracted 

 and expensive litigation was proceeding, and as one by 

 one the cases came to issue in the Courts, the conten- 

 tions of the Committee were confirmed, and the 

 pretensions of the Lords of Manors were condemned 

 and irustrated. 



Out of the seventeen cases which have been tried in 

 the Courts, in proceedings for the purpose of preventing 

 inclosure of Commons, by the advice of the Commons 

 Society, and generally with the assistance of their able 

 lawyers, there was not one in which the Lord of a 

 Manor was able to justify his proceedings under the 

 Statute of Merton. The cases of Berkhamsted, Plum- 

 stead, Tooting, Coulsdon, Epping Forest, Ashdown 

 Forest, Dartford, Banstead, Wigley, Malvern and 

 Walton formed an unbroken series of victories. In 



