CROWN FORESTAL RIGHTS.
THE member for Malden is fairly entitled to the honour of having—in the language of the ring—drawn the first %Lod this session. Of all the Opposition he has been the first man to put the Government in a minority ; and it must be Admitted that, for that purpose, his motion was not badly chosen from a party point of view. If, in the present state of the House of Commons, a Tory member will come forward with a proposal which has a popular sound, and which will be sure to catch a certain number of not very logical Liberals- -say the metropolitan members—his triumph is certain. Mr. Peacocke triumphed. He carried, by a majority of forty, an address to the Crown, praying that no Crown lands, or Crown forestal rights over other people's lands, might be sold if the lands were situated within fifteen miles of the metropolis. To this standard flocked Mr. Cox, and Mr. Buxton, and Mr. Locke, and Mr. Ayrton—in short, "Liberals of every shade of -opinion." The lungs of the metropolis were not to be -closed; the property of the public was to be kept for the recreation and health of the public; and above and beyond all, Epping Forest was to be retained as a perpetual possession for the inhabitants of the East End of London. Now, it need :scarcely be said that, with all these objests, we most heartily sympathize ; but still we venture to think that a resolution, which absolutely ties the hands of the Crown in this manner, is infinitely larger than was required by the circumstances of the case. The Commons are in the habit of passing Enclosure Bills without scrutinizing them, and they find that they have ;passed some of these bills relating to waste lands near the metropolis rather improvidently ; as a remedy for which they now practically prevent any such bill from being even brought before them. Surely this is to refuse to wash in =cold. water to-day, because yesterday you scalded yourself with hot.
Even with respect to the Crown Lands—lands of which -the soil itself actually belongs to the Crown—the policy of the resolution is somewhat doubtful. As a matter .of justice, of course, no objection can be taken to it. With the actual property of the Crown the Legislature may, of course, deal as it pleases. If it declines to enclose, it injures no one. But, as a matter of fact, ancient forests always contain a vast deal of land which is perfectly use- less for purposes of recreation — low swampy land, which afforded first-rate covert in old times to the wild boar, and in the year of grace 1862 to fevers and the ague. The practice has been to deal with these lands as Hainault Forest was dealt with. Five or six years ago it was disafforested. Allotments -of land were made to persons possessing rights over the forest in satisfaction of those rights, and the residue has been managed by the Commissioner of Woods on the same principles as other Crown property. And the interests of the neighbour- ing population have not been disregarded, for only last year, when certain parts of Hainault Forest were sold, fifty acres of land at Chigwell were set astde as a park for the recreation of the public. But, still, if Parliament chooses to say that no more okhe public land shall be sold—that all within fifteen miles of London, whether fitted for a public park or not, shall be so used, it has abundantly the right to say so. So far no shadow of injustice is done to any living mortal.
With respect to the lands over which the Crown has forestal rights, the case is somewhat different. Epping Forest, for instance—and we select it because Mr. Peacocke made it the stalking-horse of his argument—is entirely the property of private individuals, but the Crown has the right to keep deer there ; and the consequence is, that the lord of the manor and the commoners cannot proceed to enclose in the ordinary way through the medium of the Enclosure Com- missioners without the consent of the Crown. Now, it has long been a settled policy to encourage enclosures. Of all modes of occupying land, that by which it is kept as a com- mon pasture ground for a great number of commoners is the most wasteful and unprofitable. If the enclosure deprives the neighbouring cottagers of the powerof turning out a cow on the sly, of stealing wood, and trespassing at pleasure over the common, it, on the other hand, greatly increases the amount of regular employment, and greatly improves the morality of the district. It falls hardest on poachers and gipsies—a class to whom country gentlemen are not generally favourable—unless it will put Government in a minority. Again, the right of keeping deer is, of course, practically value- less. Except that a few are kept in some out-of-the-way corner as an assertion of the right, in Epping it has long been abandoned. If the right were sold, every farthing obtained for it would be so much clear gain to the Exchequer. But the House of Commons now reverses its settled policy, and persists in retaining its empty right so as to prevent the owners of the land from turning it to the best account, not for the sake of the public revenue, but in order that people in general may still be able to trespass there withimpunity. This, certainly, seems rather hard measure on the owners of certain common lands in Middlesex and Surrey. They naturally think that they ought to be treated like other such owners elsewhere, and that all should be, according to the popular speech, tarred with the same brush.
To this it is replied that the Crown is, after all, the owner of this right, that as owner it is free to sell or to refuse to sell, and that no one has the right to scrutinize its motives for refusing. Legally, of course, the position is unanswerable, but it would have more moral cogency if it had not long been the practice to overrule the crotchets, caprices, and even the interests of individuals without remorse. Still so entirely do we approve the maxim, salus populi suprema lex, so necessary is open space to the health of the mechanics of the East End, with such terror do we contemplate the arrival of the time, which enthusiastic economists have imagined, when, except within the compass of four walls, it will be impossible to be alone on the face of the earth, that to avoid such a destiny we could defy even the terrible prospects conjured up by the Times, and receive at once " socialistic doctrines " from the future, and "the old feudal forest laws" from the past. Nay, we would even subscribe to so remark- able a historical proposition as that of Walter Mapes (who has the honour of the discovery) and the writer in the Dnes—and for ever believe that William Rufus made the New Forest. But is any desperate resolve of this sort necessary ? Epping Forest consists mainly of low swampy ground, easily drained, but at present perfectly useless for any purpose whatever. In order to get rid of the Crown rights, the owners would be only too glad to convey to the public the uplands, such as High Beech,—all the open land, in fact, which is at present available for public recreation. To attain every useful object which the House proposed to itself, so sweeping a resolution as Mr. Peacocke's was perfectly unne- cessary. It may be that governments and Enclosure Commis- sioners cannot be trusted to say what lands in the vicinity of London should be kept open, and clearly, by its own confession, neither can the House itself. Butwould it not have been possible to refer all Enclosure bills to a permanent committee, with in- structions to report specially to the House as to those which deal with lands in the vicinity, not of London alone, but of any great town ? This would, as it seems, have afforded a complete remedy for the evil complained of. As it is, the House has pursued a good object with the same blind con- tempt for common sense which it showed some years back, when it made the creditors of future bankrupts pay the com- pensation of the discharged bankruptcy officials, simply because it was not desirable to increase the charges on the consolidated fund. If it cannot trust itself to keep watch over the various Enclosure Bills presented to the House, that scarcely affords a reason for endeavouring to change the nature of the ease- ment which the Crown has over the land, and to make these forestal rights into an instrument for converting the property of private persons into a public park.
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