RURAL COMMONS. 277 
and other towns, within such limits to purchase, or take 
by gift, rights of common, and to hold them in gross, 
with a view to the maintenance and improvement of 
Cominons under regulating schemes. 
I did not profess that the measure went so far as I 
personally desired, but proposed it as the maximum which 
was possibie, under the then state of public opinion. It 
was referred to a Select Committee, of which Sir W. 
Harcourt, Fawcett, and myself were members, and by 
a large majority of which it was substantially approved ; 
but it was not possible to carry the Bill further that 
year in consequence of the press of other business. 
In the following year it was introduced in the House of 
Lords, in the shape in which it had been settled by the 
Committee, and it formed the subject of long discussions 
in that House on several occasions. The clause requir- 
ing that one-tenth of the Common proposed to be 
inclosed, up to fifty acres, should be assigned for public 
purposes, for recreation or labourers’ allotments, was 
specially singled out for hostile criticism. Lord Salis- 
bury said of it :— 
“The Lord of a Manor and his Commoners were 
entitled to ask from Parliament the means of obtaining 
a full enjoyment of their rights, and Parliament was 
now asked to interpose and levy blackmail upon 
them. . . . . It was certainly spohation to enact 
that, when the Lord and the Commoners desired to 
inclose, they should be forced to concede to other persons 
rights which were perfectly new.’’* 
* Hansard, vol. 212, p. 1507. 
