26 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



oppression more firmly. Thorold Rogers calls 

 this measure " the worst Act of the worst 

 Parliament which ever sat " : but of all the 

 great writers who lived during the long period 

 covered by this measure, Adam Smith alone 

 condemns it unreservedly. " To remove a 

 man," he writes, " who has committed no 

 misdemeanour from the parish where he 

 chooses to reside is an evident violation of 

 national liberty and justice." 



The same influences which used the strong 

 arm of the law in order to fix the labourer's 

 wages and curtail his personal liberty com- 

 bined in a continuous and successful effort to 

 deprive him of his rights in waste and common 

 land. The melancholy story of the Enclosure 

 Acts is too long and complex for any detailed 

 treatment in these pages. Much has been 

 written in defence or condemnation of this 

 policy and the controversy is not yet closed. 



None of the writers, however, deny that, 

 quite apart from the question of economic 

 justification, the general result of the enclosure 

 policy was to reduce a very large number of 

 small farmers, rural workers and squatters 

 to the position of landless and dependent 

 labourers. The actual acreage of common 

 land, waste or cultivated, which passed into 

 private hands through the long series of 



