PREFACE. 
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I wap some time ago collected the materials for, and 
had written, the greater part of this work, with the 
object of giving an account of the battle, since 
1864, for the preservation of the Common lands and 
Forests of England and Wales. I delayed, however, 
completing and publishing it in the hope that a 
more favourable occasion might arise for claiming 
that the main object of the movement had been 
accomplished, either by the completion of the long 
series of lawsuits, which had for so many years been 
running their course in the law courts for the preven- 
tion of inclosures under the Statute of Merton, or by 
the adoption of legislation, which would render such 
litigation unnecessary in the future. 
That occasion has now offered itself. During the 
past year, 1893, two most important results have been 
achieved. In the first place, Parliament has passed a 
measure for the virtual repeal of the Statute of Merton, 
under the assumed sanction of which, all the attempted 
inclosures of Commons, during the period referred to, 
were made. In the second place, after a struggle in 
the law courts of thirteen years, for the saving of 
Banstead Commons, in what it is hoped will be the last 
of the great Commons suits, Parliament, in spite of most 
