24 HISTORY OF COMMONS. 
in favour of inclosure. So late as 1851 Parliament 
approved the disafforesting and inclosure of Hainault 
Forest, one of the most beautiful sylvan districts within 
reach of London. A Committee of the House of 
Commons recommended a similar scheme for Epping 
Forest, and its inclosure subject to a small allotment 
in favour of the public. The same utilitarian spirit 
threatened the New Forest and the Forest of Dean. 
Between the years 1860 and 1870, however, there 
arose two very distinct movements with respect to 
Commons: the one of opposition altogether to their 
inclosure, when within reach of large towns, and 
especially of London, on the ground that they are of 
infinitely greater value to the public as open spaces for 
health and recreation than as cultivated land or for 
building sites: the other, from the point of view of the 
agricultural labourer, whose interests had been so 
shamefully neglected in past inclosures, claiming that in 
the future no inclosures should take place, even in rural 
districts, unless they should be distinctly proved to be for 
the public interest of the district, by adding to the pro- 
duction of the soil; and insisting that where inclosures 
might be thought advisable, there should be far greater 
regard for the interests of the labouring people and for 
the public interests of the district. 
These movements were both promoted by the altered 
conditions brought about by Free Trade in corn. 
When so large a proportion of the food of the country 
was imported, it became a matter of little account 
whether a few more acres of indifferent land were added, 
