THE NEW FOREST.
pro TEE EDITOR OF THE " SmTATorc."..1
SIR,—Your correspondent " Natfura" (is it a lady ?) writes about the New Forest wild and whirling words which would be very telling if the circumstances and the proposals were different from what they are. As it is, they are misplaced. The circumstances are that communities within the peram- bulation of the Forest have long been calling out for small plots of land for the purposes of common civilisation. I take as a type Lyndhurst's requirement for the disposal of its sewage. This, even by opponents of every sort of proposal, is acknowledged to be very real and pressing. A farther circumstance is that the Crown is unable either to sell or to lease anything, and that a place like Lyndhurst, in order to obtain what it wants so badly, would at present have to incur the great expense and difficulty of a special Act of Par- liament, for the obtaining. perhaps, of only half a doz.n acres. Even legislation by provisional order is not available in such case. The proposal is to empower the Crown to meet such wants by sale or lease of small plots of land,—limited by statute as to area in each case, and also to the maximum of 250 acres in all out of the 60,000 acres, or thereabouts, which constitute the Forest. (This maximum would probably never be reached were it not for a provision about licenses, &c., for recreation purposes, which will be referred to lower down.) No such sale or lease—should there be any voices raised against it— can be made or granted except after a public inquiry,—when the necessity, as well as the absence of an alternative arrange- ment, will have to be proved. Of course this will at once exclude all those interlopers from a distance which the terrorists (or terrorised ?) see on their horizon swooping down to set up infectious hospitals and chapels, and such like, within the New Forest. But there are further circumstances which, in the interests of the commoners, identical with those of the public, for whom the commoners are virtually guardians, demand a settlement on some such basis as proposed. Daring the last few years the Crown has been claiming, and exercising with impunity, the right of granting licenses, subject to a rent, for the private inclosure of parcels of ground for purposes of recreation, such as cricket, and of butts for shooting, and such like. These plots are taken from the wastes of the Forest, and may in process of time, if allowed to continue at the mere pleasure of the Crown, be permanently abstracted from them. The proposal is to legalise and regulate these inclosures, preserving a record of the rights of the commoners by small payments to the Verderers' fund ; and as they are to be included in the maximum of 250 acres named above, there will be a security (which is now altogether absent) that they cannot be indefinitely extended. All this is important for the commoners, and therefore also for the general public. As I happen to be Official Verderer, perhaps you will allow me by this letter to administer a little soothing syrup to those of your readers who may have been perturbed by
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