ur of youth,
though eager to become the open-space authority for London, could make
no better suggestion than that all persons interested in the commons
should be bought out, that the board should defray the expense by
selling parts for building, and should make parks of what was left. Had
this advice been followed, London would probably have lost two-thirds of
the open space which she now enjoys. Fortunately a small knot of men,
who afterwards formed the Commons Preservation Society, took a broader
and wiser view. Chief amongst them were the late Philip Lawrence, who
acted as solicitor to the Wimbledon opposition, and subsequently
organized the Commons Preservation Society, George Shaw-Lefevre,
chairman of that society since its foundation, the late John Locke, and
the late Lord Mount Temple (then Mr W. F. Cowper). They urged that the
conflict of legal interests, which is the special characteristic of a
common, might be trusted to preserve it as an open space, and that all
that parliament could usefully do, was to restrict parliamentary
inclosure, and to pass a measure of police for the protection of commons
as open spaces. The select committee adopted this view. On their report,
was passed the Metropolitan Commons Act 1866, which prohibited any
further parliamentary inclosures within the metropolitan police area,
and provided means by which a common could be put under local
management. The lords of the manors in which the London commons lay felt
that their opportunity of making a rich harvest out of land, valuable
for building, though otherwise worthless, was slipping away; and a
battle royal ensued. Inclosures were commenced, and the Statute of
Merton prayed in aid. The public retorted by legal proceedings taken in
the names of commoners. These proceedings--which culminated in the
mammoth suit as to Epping Forest, with the corporation of London as
plaintiffs and fourteen lords of manors as defendants--were uniformly
successful; and London commons were saved. By degrees the manorial
lords, seeing that they could not hope to do better, parted with their
interest for a small sum to some local authority; and a large area of
the common land, not only in the county of London, but in the suburbs,
is now in the hands of the representatives of the ratepayers, and is
definitely appropriated to the recreation of the public.

Amendment of Statue of Merton.

Moreover, the Commons Preservation Society was able to base, upon t