168 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh 



framing of the Ancient Monuments Act of 1882. 

 It need not be pointed out that Lord Avebury 

 was the originator of the policy which led to it. 

 For many previous years he had pressed upon 

 Parliament a measure dealing with this question. 

 The main provision of his Bill was that the 

 Government should be empowered to acquire 

 by compulsion, not the monuments themselves, 

 which it was intended to protect, but the owners' 

 right and power to destroy or injure them. In 

 dealing with the question I could not bring 

 myself to place on the Statute Book a measure 

 recognising the right of an owner to destroy an 

 ancient monument. I could not admit the 

 existence of any such right of property. In 

 place of this I proposed a permissive measure, 

 one enabling an owner to place his monument 

 under the protection of the State. Having 

 effected this by a very simple deed, the State 

 was to be charged with the duty of protecting 

 and preserving it, and neither the owner nor any 

 other person would thenceforward be permitted 

 to injure it. But otherwise the property of the 

 owner in it was to be unaffected." 



The dissolution was on March 15, and Sir 

 John immediately went down to Maidstone. 

 His friends confidently expected him to win, but 

 the seat was lost mainly owing to an unfortunate 

 and purely local influence. His colleague, Sir 

 Sydney Waterlow, thinking to benefit the town, 

 had bought some slum property and pulled the 

 wretched houses down, intending to build, as 

 indeed he shortly afterwards did, better ones 

 in their places. The immediate effect, however, 



