152 MY LIFE 



been the proper, the equitable, and the most beneficial mode 

 of dealing with our common and waste lands at the time of 

 the last general Enclosure Act in the early years of the reign 

 of Queen Victoria. Considering, then, that these unenclosed 

 wastes were the last remnant of our country's land over which 

 we, the public, had any opportunity of free passage to breathe 

 pure air and enjoy the beauties of nature; considering that 

 these wastes, although almost worthless agriculturally, were 

 of especial value to the poor of the parishes or manors in 

 which they were situated, not only giving them pasture for 

 their few domestic animals, but in some cases peat for fuel 

 and loppings of trees for fences or garden sticks ; considering 

 that an acre or two of such land, when enclosed and cultivated, 

 would give them, in return for the labour of themselves and 

 their families during spare hours, a considerable portion of 

 their subsistence, would enable them to create a home from 

 which they could not be ejected by the will of any landlord 

 or employer, and would thus raise them at once to a con- 

 dition of comparative independence and security, abolishing 

 the terrible spectre of the workhouse for their old age, which 

 now haunts the peasant or labourer throughout life, and is 

 the fundamental cause of that exodus to the towns about 

 which so much nonsense is talked; considering, further, that 

 just in proportion as men rise in the social scale, these various 

 uses of the waste lands become less and less vitally important, 

 till, when we arrive at the country squire and great landowner, 

 the only use of the enclosed common or moor is either to be 

 used as a breeding ground for game, or to add to some of his 

 farms a few acres of land at an almost nominal rent — con- 

 sidering all these circumstances, and further, that those who 

 perform what is fundamentally the most important and the 

 most beneficial of all work, the production of food, should 

 be able to obtain at least the necessaries of life by that 

 work, and secure a comfortable old age by their own fireside 

 — how would any lover of his country think that such lands 

 ought to be dealt with in the best interests of the whole 

 community ? 



Surely, that the very first thing to be done should be to 



