s of the two Houses. The
commission, on being satisfied of the propriety of an inclosure was to
draw up a provisional order prescribing the general conditions on which
it was to be carried out, and this order was to be submitted to
parliament by the government of the day for confirmation. It is believed
that these inclosure orders afford the first example of the provisional
order system of legislation, which has attained such large proportions.

Again inclosure moved forward, and between 1845 and 1869 (when it
received a sudden check) 600,000 acres passed through the hands of the
inclosure commission. Taking the whole period of about a century and a
half, when parliamentary inclosure was in favour, and making an estimate
of acreage where the acts do not give it, the result may be thus
summarized:--

Acres.
From 1709 to 1797 2,744,926
" 1801 to 1842 1,307,964
" 1845 to 1869 618,000
Add for Forests inclosed under Special Acts 100,000
---------
4,770,890

The total area of England being 37,000,000 acres, we shall probably not
be far wrong in concluding that about one acre in every seven was
inclosed during the period in question. During the first period, the
lands inclosed consisted mainly of common arable fields; during the
second, many great tracts of moor and fen were reduced to severalty
ownership. In the third period, inclosure probably related chiefly to
the ordinary manorial common; and it seems likely that, on the whole,
England would have gained, had inclosure stopped in 1845.

Open Space movement.

As a fact it stopped in 1869. Before the inclosure commission had been
in existence twenty years the feeling of the nation towards commons
began to change. The rapid growth of towns, and especially of London,
and the awakening sense of the importance of protecting the public
health, brought about an appreciation of the value of commons as open
spaces. Naturally, the metropolis saw the birth of this sentiment. An
attempted inclosure in 1864 of the commons at Epsom and Wimbledon
aroused strong opposition; and a select committee of the House of
Commons was appointed to consider how the London commons could best be
preserved. The Metropolitan Board of Works, then in the vigo