284: RURAL COMMONS. 
the Committee, by a small majority, approved the 
scheme for the inclosure of Maltby Common. But on 
the motion of Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, the following 
clause was inserted in the Report of the Committee, 
pointing out the anomalous state of the law in allowing 
inclosures otherwise than by the sanction of Parliament, 
and without the securities for the public interest which 
were in their opinion necessary. 
“It was pointed out to the Committee that if the provisional 
order for inclosing Maltby Common were not accepted by 
Parliament, there was a possibility of the parties interested 
coming to terms and inclosing the whole Common, and that, if 
that were done, the intentions of Parliament for the protection of 
the rights of the poorer inhabitants, and the health, comfort, 
and convenience of the neighbourhood would be thereby frus- 
trated, and that persons might arbitrarily inclose common land 
on the chance of nobody interfering. It is evident that this 
condition of the Jaw might materially impair the free action of 
the Commissioners, and interfere with the intentions of Parliament, 
if the Commissioners were informed that, should they not accept 
the exact terms proposed by the majority of the parties interested, 
the inclosure would be carried out in another way without any 
reference to the Acts of Parliament bearing on the subject.” 
The opposition to the inclosure of Maltby Common 
did not end with the Committee. Mr. Mundella gave 
notice to move the rejection of the Bill in the House, 
and as the Government gave no assistance for the 
discussion of the Bill, at a time when it could be taken, 
it must be presumed that it was hostile to the scheme. 
In any case the scheme did not receive the sanction of 
Parliament; the inclosure was abandoned; and Maltby 
