356 STATUTE OF MERTON. 



inclose under these Statutes, must obtain in advance 

 the consent of the Board of Agriculture. This alone 

 will be a most valuable security, for it will entail 

 publicity, and will give opportunity for inquiry, and 

 for the raising of objections on the part of Commoners 

 or the public. But the Act goes much further, for it 

 directs that the Board, in giving or withholding their 

 consent, are to take into consideration the same ques- 

 tions which they are bound to entertain before con- 

 senting to inclosure under the Commons Act of 187G. 

 In other words, it must be proved to their satisfaction 

 that the inclosure will be of benefit to the public. The 

 public interest is therefore imported for the first time 

 by the Act of 1893, as a necessary condition to future 

 proceedings under the Statute of Merton. 



Furthermore, the clause in Lord Cross's Act of 

 1876, requiring a Lord of the Manor to give notice of 

 his intention to inclose a portion of a Common, by an 

 advertisement in the local papers three months before 

 effecting it, becomes, in combination with the recent 

 Act, for the first time a provision of value and effi- 

 ciency. The Board of Agriculture, as in the case of 

 inclosures under the Copyhold Act, will in the first 

 instance, before entertaining a proposal to inclose under 

 the Statute of Merton, insist that this notice shall have 

 been given ; the notice will give rise to objections. 

 The Board must then be satisfied by the lord that 

 the inclosure will be of benefit to the public. There 

 will further. arise the question whether a sufficiency of 

 Common will be left for the Commoners. The Board 



