STATUTE OF MERTON. 357 



will not give their consent unless there be some strong 

 proof of this. But their decision will not prevent any 

 Commoner from appealing to the Law Courts. 



The most important bar, however, to inclosures 

 under the New Act, will be the necessity of proving 

 that the public interest will be promoted by them. 

 This introduces a new element, fatal to the general 

 pretensions of Lords of Manors. Hitherto they have 

 not been compelled to have regard for public interests 

 in their transactions under the ancient Statute. Private 

 gain and aggrandisement, the desire to convert the 

 Common into building land, or to add it to their parks 

 or game preserves, have been their main or only motives. 

 It is only necessary to consider how this new principle 

 would have operated in the proceedings, which have been 

 described in this work, to appreciate what a protection 

 to the public it would have been. It may be claimed, 

 with the utmost confidence, that in no one of these 

 cases could the Board of Agriculture have been satisfied 

 that the public interest was concerned in inclosure. It 

 is certain, then, that if this Act had been passed thirty 

 years ago, not one of these inclosures, which have been 

 resisted and abated at such enormous cost, could 

 possibly have been attempted, nor would the Lords of 

 Manors have ventured to ask the approval of the Board 

 of Agriculture on the ground of public advantage. 

 The Act must be taken in connection also with the 

 recent decision of Parliament in the Banstead Commons 

 case, in which, as has already been pointed out, the 

 principle has been finally affirmed that a Common may 



