320 REGULATION OF COMMONS. 
does not appear to have actively opposed. The scheme 
proposed to make the Metropolitan Board the Con- 
servators of the Commons. It contained, however, 
no provision, as required by the Act of 1866, that 
really beneficial rights should not be substantially 
interfered with without compensation. This serious 
defect was in vain pointed out to the Board by the 
Commons Society. 
It followed, after the confirmation of the scheme 
by Parliament, that the Lord of the Manor con- 
tinued to dig gravel from the two Commons in a 
manner prejudicial to the user by the public, and 
contrary to the bye-laws made under the scheme. The 
Metropolitan Board thereupon brought a suit against 
him in 1879, to restrain him from doing this. The 
Master of the Rolls, Sir George Jessel, decided against 
the Board, on the ground that the Act of 1866 gave no 
power to the Board to restrain the gravel digging (if 
there was a right to dig antecedent to the scheme, 
a point which he did not decide and which was not 
raised by the Board) without compensation, and that 
the scheme contained no provision for compensation. 
In other respects the judgment was a complete vindica- 
tion of the policy of the Metropolitan Commons Act, 
for it held that the scheme could properly restrain 
the lord in the exercise of mere acts of ownership, 
which were not of a beneficial character to himself; 
so that he could not keep people off the Common, and 
could not prevent the Board from appointing Common- 
keepers, or putting up seats, or draining, levelling, 
