306 STATUTE OF MERTON. 
inclose under these Statutes, must obtain in advance 
the consent of the Board of Agriculture. This alone 
will be a most valuable security, for it will entail 
publicity, and will give opportunity for inquiry, and 
for the raising of objections on the part of Commoners 
or the public. But the Act goes much further, for it 
directs that the Board, in giving or withholding their 
consent, are to take into consideration the same ques- 
tions which they are bound to entertain before con- 
senting to inclosure under the Commons Act of 1876. 
In other words, it must be proved to their satisfaction 
that the inclosure will be of benefit to the public. The 
public interest is therefore imported for the first time 
by the Act of 1893, as a necessary condition to future 
proceedings under the Statute of Merton. 
Furthermore, the clause in Lord Cross’s Act of 
1576, requiring a Lord of the Manor to give notice of 
his intention to inclose a portion of a Common, by an 
advertisement in the local papers three months before 
effecting it, becomes, in combination with the recent 
Act, for the first time a provision of value and effi- 
ciency. The Board of Agriculture, as in the case of 
inclosures under the Copyhold Act, will in the first 
instance, before entertaining a proposal to inclose under 
the Statute’of Merton, insist that this notice shall have 
been given; the notice will give rise to objections. 
The Board must then be satisfied by the lord that 
the inclosure will be of benefit to the public. There 
wil further arise the question whether a sufficiency of 
Common will be left for the Commoners. The Board 
