338 ATTACKS BY RAILWAY COMPANIES. 
most beautiful part of the New Forest ; this also was suc- 
cessfully opposed, with the aid of Sir William Harcourt. 
Numerous other cases of the same kind occurred. It 
came at last to be understood by railway companies that 
they had far better come to terms with the Commons 
Society, than attempt to fight it in the House of 
Commons. The Society in its negotiations with com- 
panies, has insisted that, where possible, new lines of 
railways should altogether avoid passing through 
Commons, especially when in the neighbourhood of 
towns; that where such a course was inevitable, the 
line should be constructed either in a tunnel or on 
the principle of ‘cut and cover,” so as to avoid 
disfiguring the Common; and that where as was often 
the case small parts of Commons were required, the 
companies should undertake to add equivalent land in 
other directions so as to avoid reducing their areas. 
The Society has also come into conflict with powerful 
Corporations. In 1878 the Corporation of Manchester 
proposed a scheme for taking Lake Thirlmere, in 
Cumberland, as a reservoir for the supply of water to 
their city, and it also proposed to expropriate a great area 
of Commons in the adjoining hills as a collecting ground 
for the water. The public had always enjoyed access to 
these open spaces, and it would have been possible for the 
Corporation, by acquiring these lands, to exclude them 
in the future. By threatening opposition, the Society 
induced the Corporation to insert a clause in their Bill 
to the effect “that the access heretofore enjoyed on the 
part of the public and tourists to the mountains and 
