common of pasture, and when e into pasture was reversed, as it was 1688, the convenience, amounting to neces vidual ownership, created the modern practice of enclosure. This was at first done by way of agreement between the lord of the manor and his tenants, which had to be confirmed by Parliament. A very accurate writer (the late Mr. Joshua Williams) says, that there were only two of such acts in the reign of Charles the Second, and none in the reign of James the Second or of William and Mary. From the passing of the first Inclosure Act, said to be in the year 1710, to the beginning of the reign of George the Third (A.D. 1760), more than 3,000,000 of acres were enclosed. From the accession of George the Third to the passing of the General Inclosure Act, 1845, 7,000,000 acres more were enclosed. I am citing these statistics as proof of the strength of the tendency to change joint ownership into private ownership. In every other point of view these statistics are shocking to one's sense of justice and true policy. In form every one of these acts were private acts, which could only be promoted by interested persons, and could not be opposed without a cost which was enormous, and therefore impossible to the cottagers and labourers who were injuriously affected by them. At last, in the year 1845, the attention of the legislature was directed to this crying evil, and since the Act of that year (8 and 9 Vic., cap. 118), all enclosures are placed under the control of the Inclosure Commissioners, and have to be sanctioned by Parliament as public acts, and may therefore be the subject of discussion and opposition without the cost of opposing a private bill. The Act contained certain provisions, much too scanty and inadequate, for the preservation of village greens and allotments for the labouring poor. So far, I think, my second proposition has been proved--that economic necessities have communal ownership into p But a complete and impartial s. question must take note of the fact, tha. and the Community have, especially during re-asserted themselves for the public benefit in a me I mean in the growing tendency to oblige owners of lands to part with them, for the public benefit, on receiving adequate compensation. This tendency first distinctly manifested itself in the last century, when the making of canals required that compulsion should be applied to landowners who would not voluntarily permit such works to be executed. From that time up to the year 1845, every such compulsion was a special act of grace on the part of the legislature-a privilegium. As soon, however, as the railway system began to assume its modern proportions, it became necessary that such privilegia should be part of the ordinary statute law, and accordingly the measure known as the "Lands' Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845," was passed, which is being constantly and increasingly applied to every object of public policy-schools, sanitary improvements, artizans' dwellings, and other like matters. Against this resumption by the State of its ancient powers applied to modern requirements in modern methods, and made fair and just by adequate compensation to private interests, there is nothing to be said, and it is very probable that the number of instances to which it will be applied, will be greatly increased before the close of the present century. The same tendency to re-assert the rights of common ownership has been recently strongly manifested in opposition to the indiscriminate enclosure of waste and common lands. A select committee of the House of Commons, reporting on the Enclosure Act, 1869, stated that from the passing of the General Inclosure Act, 1845, to 1869, 614,800 acres had been enclosed, of which threefifths, or 368,000 acres might be assumed to be waste lands of manors, over which all the tenants of such manors would have common rights; but that out of these 368,000 acres, only 2,223 eserving such comi.» or-although legally the ae joint property of the lord and cular manor, and of them only-. unerance, anybody is at liberty to roam over the common After so long as they do no damage. The Society for the Preservation of Commons was formed to preserve these privileges. long and costly litigation- Epping Forest, Hampstead Heath, Plumstead, Berkhamstead, and Wimbledon Commons have been secured for public purposes, and several important amendments have been made in the provisions of the Inclosure Act, 1845. I began by stating that the political and commercial sides of the question were outside the province of this Society, but the general result of the numerous, and I am afraid dry details of my paper, is, I think, already apprehended by you. It is this that the tendency to substitute the ownership of the individual citizen for the ownership of the State and the Community has been so strong, that it has gradually overcome all obstacles which Kings or Parliaments have placed in its path-that every political or economical change has helped its ultimate triumph. This does not, of itself, prove that it is the true and final principle of ownership of land; but it does prove that it is a tendency which must be taken into account in any attempted alteration of the conditions of ownership of land. An English politician who endeavours to settle this, or any other question, by some short or easy abstract principle, regardless of the historical view and its teachings, may do much mischief, but he will do nothing for the ultimate solution of the great problem, how to harmonize the centripetal and centrifugal forces of private property and public good. |