276 RURAL COMMONS. 
Wisley ; and the other, because the provision of a single 
acre for recreation, out of 1,800 proposed to be inclosed, 
appeared to them to be wholly inadequate. Subject to 
these exclusions, the Inclosure Bill was pushed on by 
the Government of the day, in spite of Fawcett’s oppo- 
sition, and was ultimately carried. 
Owing to the recommendation of the Select Com- 
mittee that inclosures should be suspended until the 
General Act had been amended, several schemes were 
stopped for the time. It was not till 1871 that the 
question again came on the ¢apis of Parliament. In 
that year I was for a short time Under Secretary for the 
Home Office, and in that capacity I had to deal with 
the subject of Commons. I accordingly introduced a 
Bill, founded on the recommendations of the Committee 
of 1869, and going much beyond them on several 
important points. It proposed that where inclosure of 
a Common was authorised, it should be only on the 
condition of an assignment to the public, either for re- 
creation purposes, or for allotments, of one-tenth of the 
Common, where the acreage was 500 and under, and 
where above this, of not less than fifty acres, or more 
than one-tenth of it. It further proposed to prohibit 
altogether the inclosure of Commons within a certain 
distance of towns, varying between one mile for a 
town of 5,000 inhabitants, and six miles for one of 
200,000 inhabitants. It extended, within these limits, 
the provisions of the Metropolitan Commons Act of 
1866 for the regulation of Commons. It contained an 
important clause, enabling local authorities of London, 
