THE COMMITTEE ON COMMONS. 37 
authority of the Statute of Merton would be entirely 
inconsistent with the more comprehensive legislation of the 
present day. With agricultural districts they have no concern 
in their present inquiry; but with regard to Commons near 
large towns, as these latter have rapidly increased in population, 
the necessity of providing open spaces for health and recreation 
has become paramount to the mere improvement of those lands in 
an agricultural sense; and seeing that the inevitable result of 
the inclosure by private individuals of lands in the populous 
suburbs of the metropolis would be not even agricultural 
improvement, but building, they have no hesitation in 
coming to the conclusion that it is time the Statute 
of Merton should be repealed. It may be that, owing to the 
very enjoyment by the public of the Commons in the neigh- 
bourhood of the metropolis, these spaces have become unpro- 
ductive as pastures, and that much evidence of the rights 
formerly exercised by the Commoners has become lost. In such 
cases it might fairly be argued that the Commoners, by their 
acquiescence in the public enjoyment, had virtually transferred 
their rights to the public; and it might not be unjust that the 
Legislature should sanction and confirm such transfer rather 
than that the Lords should reap the benefit of the lapse of the 
Commoners’ rights.” 
The Committee further recommended that no in- 
closures should be authorised within the Metropolitan 
Police area under the provisions of the Inclosure Act of 
1845, and they condemned the scheme of purchase put 
forward by the Metropolitan Board. 
“Tf,” they said, ‘the Legislature should adopt the recom- 
mendation not to authorise any further inelosures within the 
Metropolitan area, we do not see the necessity for the immediate 
expenditure of so large a sum of public money as such purchase 
