RURAL COMMONS. 279 
missioners. It did not extend the Metropolitan 
Commons Act to other Commons near to towns. It 
proposed, however, an alternative for inclosures of Rural 
Commons, in schemes for their regulation ; but it pro- 
vided that such schemes could only be adopted with the 
same consents as those for inclosure, namely on the 
approval of two-thirds, in value, of the Commoners, and 
also of the Lord of the Manor—while the essential feature 
of the Metropolitan Commons Act was that a scheme 
could be applied for by any one or more Commoners, 
and could be carried, not only without the approval of 
the Lord of the Manor, but in spite of his opposition. 
Mr. Cross, in introducing the Bill, pointed out that 
the circumstances had greatly altered since the Inclosure 
Acts of 1801 and 1545. 
«The feeling of the country,” he said, “ had changed, and 
the reason for it was not difficult to find. In the first place, the 
necessity for increasing the food supply of the people by the 
cultivation of Commons was not by any means so pressing 
as formerly. . . . Then the general increase of the popula- 
tion was so large that in discussing the expediency of inclosing 
lands, they had to consider not merely how to inerease the food 
supply, but what was really best calculated to promote the health 
and material prosperity of the people. Whatever could be done 
in this way without interfering with private rights, it was their 
duty to do, and the question of Commons, viewed in this light, 
was perhaps of even greater importance now than it was in 1801 
and 1845.” * 
The Commons Society did not consider that the 
Bill, as introduced, fulfilled these expectations or the 
* Parliamentary Debates, vol. 227, p. 189. 
