344 STATUTE OF MERTON. 
unwilling or unable to bear the heavy cost of resisting 
them by legal proceedings. 
The Government of the day unfortunately refused 
to adopt this advice and to repeal the Statute of Merton. 
There followed the long series of aggressions on 
Commons which have been described in this work. The 
Lords of Manors did their utmost to put in force their 
doctrines, and, by inclosing, to realise the great differ- 
ence between the value of the Commons, as waste land, 
and as building sites. There resulted that which the 
Committee of 1865 expected and predicted. In every 
case of attempted inclosure, some public-spirited persons 
were found to undertake the cause of the Commoners, 
and indirectly of the public, and to contest the legality 
of the inclosures. Years passed by while this protracted 
and expensive litigation was proceeding, and as one by 
one the cases came to issue in the Courts, the conten- 
tions of the Committee were confirmed, and the 
pretensions of the Lords of Manors were condemned 
and. irustrated. 
Out of the seventeen cases which have been tried in 
the Courts, in proceedings for the purpose of preventing 
inclosure of Commons, by the advice of the Commons 
Society, and generally with the assistance of their able 
lawyers, there was not one in which the Lord of a 
Manor was able to justify his proceedings under the 
Statute of Merton. The eases of Berkhamsted, Plum- 
stead, Tooting, Coulsdon, Epping Forest, Ashdown 
Forest, Dartford, Banstead, Wigley, Malvern and. 
Walton formed an unbroken series of victories. In 
