352 STATUTE OF MERTON. 
proposed that, if it was thought necessary to provide 
any substitute, it should take the form of the grant of 
small farms as freehold, with the consent of the Vestry 
of the Parish, after due public notice. 
The Committee, in the result, substantially accepted 
the views thus placed before them, substituting the con- 
sent of the Land Commission for that of the Vestry, and 
inserted in the Bill (which afterwards became law under 
the title of the Copyhold Act, 1887) a clause in the 
following words :— 
“After the passing of this Act, it shall not be lawful for 
the Lord of any Manor to make grants of land not previously 
of Copyhold tenure to any person to hold by copy of Court 
Roll, or by any tenure of a customary nature, without the 
previous consent of the Land Commissioners, who, in giving or 
withholding their consent, shall have regard to the same con- 
siderations as are to be taken into account by them on giving 
or withholding their consent to any inclosure of Common lands; 
and whenever any such grant has been lawfully made, the land 
therein comprised shall cease to be of Copyhold tenure, and shall 
be vested m the grantee thereof to hold for the interest granted 
as in free and common socage.” * 
The exact legal effect of this clause may in some 
respects be open to doubt. While it absolutely nega- 
tives the creation of new Copyholders, it assumes that the 
power of grant previously used will be maintained, and 
it does not in terms release any land, which a Lord may 
grant with the consent required by the Act, from the 
common rights previously existing over the land. But 
the important point in the interests of open spaces is, 
that no grant of any part of a Common, under any 
* 50 and 51 Vie. ¢. 73, sec. 6. 
