16 THE NEW FOREST 



Act, and the condition of the Forest was just as 

 much one of discontent as it had been for the 

 previous hundred years, in spite of the efforts 

 that had been made to satisfy it. 



These agitations continued until the whole 

 question of the operation of the Deer Removal 

 Act the discontent of the commoners, before 

 and since the passing of that remedial measure 

 was referred in 1868 to a Committee of the 

 House of Lords. 



That Committee made a very full and judicial 

 inquiry into the rights and the wrongs of both 

 sides, and its report was much of the nature of 

 a judgment of Solomon, viz. that, since from time 

 immemorial grievances and disputes had been 

 rife on both sides, to which there seemed to be 

 no solution, the time had come to destroy the 

 bone of contention, and to disafforest and par- 

 tition up the whole Forest. This was the con- 

 clusion to which most people, having regard to 

 the precedents in other cases, had been driven 

 long before. Indeed, so long ago as 1789 the 

 same solution had been arrived at and carefully 

 considered by a Royal Commission, despairing, as 

 the House of Lords did in 1868, of arriving at a 

 reconciliation of the conflicting interests ; but for- 

 tunately they decided to postpone the evil day, 

 and try remedial measures first. 



