64 LAND REFORM 



" freeholders and copyholders of the manor." The 

 result of the trial was that a perpetual injunction was 

 granted with costs. The common was thus saved for 

 the people to whom it belonged.^ 



The effect of this vast increase of inclosures was 

 soon generally felt. Small holders and peasant pro- 

 prietors disappeared as fast as the common land on 

 which they relied for pasture was inclosed, and their 

 holdings were absorbed into adjoining farms. Prices 

 of cereals ruled so high that old pastures and other 

 kinds of land, suitable or unsuitable, were put under 

 the plough. To make the evil worse, the rage for large 

 farming set in. By adding farm to farm, and holding 

 to holding, there was supposed to be an economic gain 

 through having only to keep up one homestead in- 

 stead of several. It was true, and known to be true, 

 that the process inevitably squeezed the smaller and 

 moderate-sized farms out of existence and caused the 

 classes that tilled them to disappear ; but the notion of 

 gain overpassed every other consideration. On this 

 subject also the local records and histories give 

 abundant information.^ In a very interesting account 

 of the manor of Bramshot the following appears : — 



^ A brother of the writer's, in one of these cases of illegal inclosures, 

 pulled down the fences, which were of iron and masonry. He was prose- 

 cuted, and the trial took place at the Exeter assizes before a judge and 

 jury, when the verdict v/as given in his favour, and the ground — since be- 

 come very valuable — was saved for the use of the public for ever. But 

 it very rarely happened that the efforts of the common people to protect 

 their rights were successful. These efforts were not often made, because 

 they carried with them social punishments hard to be borne. 



2 These extracts and quotations are given because they bring the 

 matters referred to more clearly to the minds of general readers than 

 mere abstract statements can do. The same remark applies to extracts 

 and quotations generally throughout this book. Old documents, official 

 documents, Blue Books and Hansard, though they are mines of informa- 

 tion, are consulted only by the few. For this reason the present writer 



