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COMMONS 169 sweep of the scythe) of a tract of land, without possessing cannot inclose, because inclosure is inconsistent with the any ownership in the land itself, or in the trees or mines. enjoyment of the commoners’ rights. At a very early Such a right is known as a right of sole vesture. date it was held that the right of a commoner proceeded A more limited right of the same character is a right out of every part of the common, so that the owner of of sole pasturage—the exclusive right to take everything the soil could not set aside part for the commoner and growing on the land in question by the mouths of cattle, inclose the rest. The Statutes of Merton and Westminster but not in any other way. Either of these rights may the Second were passed to get over this difficulty. But exist throughout the whole year, or during part only. A under these statutes the burden of proving that sufficient right of sole common pasturage and herbage was given to pasture was left was thrown upon the owner of the soil; a certain class of commoners in Ashdown Forest on the such proof can very seldom be given. Moreover, the partition of the forest at the end of the 18th century. statutes have never enabled an inclosure to be made We have seen that the common arable fields and against commoners entitled to estovers or turbary. It common meadows of a vill were thrown open to the seems clear that the statutes had become obsolete in the stock of the community between harvest and time of Edward VI., or they would not have been reseec t ^common ^ ™e- There is still to be found, here enacted. And we know that the zealous advocates of C fi™dl°a and there, a group of arable common fields, inclosure in the 18th century considered them worthless and occasionally a piece of grass land with many for their purposes. Practically it may be taken that, save of the characteristics of a common, which turns out to where the owner of the soil of a common acquires all the be a common field or meadow. The Hackney Marshes lands in the township (generally coterminous with the and the other so-called commons of Hackney are really parish) with which the common is connected, an inclosure common fields or common meadows, and along the valley cannot legally be effected by him. And even in the latter of the Lea a constant succession of such meadows is case it may be that rights of common are enjoyed in met with. They are still owned in parcels marked by respect of lands outside the parish, and that such rights metes; the owners have the right to grow a crop of hay prevent an inclosure. between Lady Day and Lammas Day; and from Lammas Modern Inclosure.—When, therefore, the common-field to March the lands are subject to the depasturage of stock. system began to fall out of gear, and the increase of In the case of some common fields and meadows the right population brought about a demand for an of feed during the open time belongs exclusively to the increased production of corn, it was felt to be Tbemodera owners; in others to a larger class, such as the owners necessary to resort to Parliament for power to Act^^ and occupiers of all lands within the bounds of the parish. effect inclosure. The legislation which ensued Anciently, as we have seen, the two classes would be was based on two principles. One was, that all persons inidentical. In some places new-comers not owning strips terested in the open land to be dealt with should receive in the fields were admitted to the right of turn out; in a proportionate equivalent in inclosed land ; the other, that others, not. Hence the distinction. Similar divergences inclosure should not be prevented by the opposition, or of practice will be found to exist in Switzerland at the the inability to act, of a small minority. Assuming that present day; nieder-gelassene, or new-comers, are in some inclosure was desirable, no more equitable course could communes admitted to all rights, while, in others, privileges have been adopted, though in details particular Acts may are reserved to the burger, or old inhabitant householders. have been objectionable. The first Act was passed in Some of the largest tracts of waste land to be found 1709; but the precedent was followed but slowly, and in England are the waste or commonable lands of Royal not till the middle of the 18th century did the annual Forests or Chases. The thickets and pastures number of Acts attain double figures. The high-water 8 ia E in Royal PP g Eorest, now happily preserved for mark was reached in the period from 1765 to 1785, Forests. London under the guardianship of the City when on an average forty-seven Acts were passed every Corporation, and the noble woods and far- year. From some cause, possibly the very considerstretching heaths of the Hew Forest, will be called to able expense attending upon the obtaining of an Act, the mind. Cannock Chase, unhappily inclosed according to numbers then began slightly to fall off. In the year law, though for the most part still lying waste, Dartmoor, 1793 a Board of Agriculture, apparently similar in charand Ashdown Forest in Sussex, are other instances; and acter to the Chambers of Commerce of our own day, was the list might be greatly lengthened. Space will not established. Sir John Sinclair was its president, and permit of any description of the forest system; it is Arthur Young, the well-known agricultural reformer, was enough, in this connexion, to say that the common rights its secretary. Owing to the efforts of this body, and of a in a forest were usually enjoyed by the owners and occu- Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons on piers of land within its bounds (the class may differ in Sinclair’s motion, the first General Inclosure Act was passed exact definition, but is substantially equivalent to this) in 1801. This Act would at the present day be called an without reference to manorial considerations. Epping Inclosure Clauses Act. It contained a number of provisions Forest was saved by the proof of this right. It is often applicable to inclosures, which could be incorporated, by said that the right was given, or confirmed, to the inhabit- reference, in a private Bill. By this means, it was hoped, ants in consideration of the burden of supporting the deer the length and complexity, and consequently the expense, for the pleasure of the king or of the owner of the chase. of inclosure Bills would be greatly diminished. Under the It seems more probable that the forest law prevented the stimulus thus applied inclosure proceeded apace. In the growth of the manorial system, and with it those rules year 1801 no less than 119 Acts were passed, and the total which have tended to restrict the class of persons entitled area inclosed probably exceeded 300,000 acres. Three to enjoy the waste lands of the district. inclosures in the Lincolnshire Fens account for over We have seen that in the case of each kind of common 53,000 acres. As before, the movement after a time there is a division of interest. The soil belongs to one spent its force, the annual average of Acts falling to about person; other persons are entitled to take twelve in the decade 1830-40. Another Parliamentary tio^oi certain products of the soil. This division of committee then sat to consider how inclosure might be proinclosure, interest preserves the common as an open moted ; and the result was the Inclosure Act, 1845, which, space. The commoners cannot inclose, because though much amended by subsequent legislation, still the land does not belong to them. The owner of the soil stands on the statute-book. The chief feature of that 22 S. III.