20 HISTORY OF COMMONS. 
the land, and for this purpose to inclose such Commons 
and wastes of Manors as were suitable for cultivation, 
greatly increased. It was recognised that it was a 
matter of national importance and almost of safety 
to add to the area of cultivated land. From the date 
of the fall of the Stuarts, when England began to 
intervene more actively in the affairs of the Continent, 
and was seldom for many years without the luxury 
of a foreign war, till the adoption of Free Trade in 
1846, there was no hesitation or doubt as to the policy 
of promoting inclosures. Under more than 4,000 
separate Inclosure Acts, upwards of 7,175,000 acres 
of Commons or common fields were inclosed. 
The addition of so large an area to the cultivated 
land of England and Wales, was doubtless of consider- 
able advantage, by adding to its productive power, and 
by affording additional employment for labourers in 
rural districts. But it was not an unmixed benefit. 
From the manner in which these inclosures were carried 
out they had other and opposite effects. It is now 
generally admitted that they were a large cause of the 
extinction of the class of small yeomen, cultivating their 
own land. The holdings of these men were of such a 
size, that the rights attaching to them, of turning out 
cattle on the waste lands, were of the greatest importance, 
and indeed indispensably necessary, to their successful 
cultivation. When these rights were detached from 
the holdings, and were compensated for in money or by 
allotments of land at some distance, the holdings could 
no longer be cultivated at a profit. The owners were 
