62 LAND REFORM 



hundred and sixty thousand proprietors, who with 

 their families must have made up more than a seventh 

 of the whole population, derived their substance from 

 their freehold estates."^ 



But only a few years later, at the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century, a new system was adopted with 

 regard to inclosures — a system which was destined to 

 destroy the state of things described by Lord Mac- 

 aulay. Parliamentary powers for inclosing land were 

 asked for, and — the territorial party being dominant 

 in the Legislature — were easily obtained. The first 

 Inclosure Act was passed in 1710. This was the 

 beginning of the last chapter of the proceedings which 

 completed the divorce of the people from the soil. 

 The rural population, which up to that time had been 

 despoiled by private action, was thenceforth to suffer, 

 perhaps even more severely, by Acts of Parliament. 



The effect was not immediately felt ; for the period 

 of high prices had not yet begun, and the area in- 

 closed for some years after the passing of the Act was 

 comparatively small. Professor Rogers describes the 

 first half of the eighteenth century as a time of pros- 

 perity for the peasantry.^ But later on prices rose 

 enormously, in consequence of the Continental and 

 American wars. This gave a great, almost a wild, 

 impetus to the inclosure of land. 



In the first Report of the Royal Commission on 

 Agriculture, 1867 (issued in 1896), it is estimated that 

 from the time of the first Inclosure Act, 17 10, to the 

 year 1760, there were 334,974 acres inclosed — an 

 area about half that of the county of Dorsetshire. But 



^ Macaulay's " History of England," Vol. I. 

 ' " Six Centuries of Work and Wages." 



