140 EPPING FOREST. 
whatever; which would, if enforced at all, have to be enforced in 
opposition to the claims of the Lords of the Manors, of copy- 
holders, and of others, claims which were perfectly defensible, 
which the proprietors had vested in them, and of which they could 
not be deprived except by the ordinary mode of passing an Act of 
Parliament, and by giving them compensation, or by adopting 
those friendly contracts following upon negotiations with which 
honourable members were familiar.” * 
He then pointed out the shadowy nature of the 
rights of the Crown in that portion of the Forest where 
they still subsisted ; that the deer, for whose protection 
they were intended, had disappeared; and that in order to 
maintain and enforce these rights, it would be necessary 
to reinstate the special Courts in the Forest, by which 
alone the Forest laws could be enforced, and which had 
practically ceased to exist. 
In spite of the difficulties thus urged by the Law 
Officer, the feeling of the House was so strongly in 
favour of something being done to preserve the Forest, 
that the Government was compelled to yield to it, and 
Mr. Gladstone assented to the motion, substituting, 
however, words in the proposed address, to the effect 
that measures should be taken for the preservation of 
the Forest, for the words aiming at the enforcement of 
the forestal rights of the Crown. 
In consequence of this motion, a Bill was later in the 
same session introduced by the late Mr. Ayrton, then 
First Commissioner of Works, which proposed to 
deal with the Forest. It was the result of negotiations 
* Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 199, p. 259. 
