CHAPTER XIX

THE STOLEN COMMONS

The Disappearance of the English Playgrounds and Commons—Fawcett’s first Protest—The Annual Enclosure Bill stopped by his energetic Action.

[Sidenote: A Countryman to the Rescue.]

Fawcett used to say that there was no part of his public work on which he looked with so much unalloyed satisfaction as on his work for the commons. Perhaps a few words show what a complicated question he had to deal with, and how great the need was for the strong and courageous action which he took in this matter.

He would see the urgency as only those could see it whose knowledge of country life and country ways was drawn from the farming and labouring classes. He kept true to his early lessons and did not allow his path to be deviated by the many side issues in which these questions were involved.

[Sidenote: Common Lands.]

From the earliest times there had been in every parish in England a large tract of land held in common. Part of it was cultivated jointly by the villagers and part of it was kept as open common land, and all parishioners had the right to feed their beasts there, and to cut wood or furze, and similar privileges.

This gave much independence to the simpler folk and added to their resources and comforts, but it also made it impossible to farm the common lands by more modern and more productive methods. So there arose a movement for enclosing these lands and dividing them up among the different village inhabitants, to become their own individual property. As regards the lands farmed jointly, this course had many advantages provided that the distribution was made fairly. But when it came to the commons proper, the benefit was much more doubtful even from a wealth-giving point of view. As to the non-economic value of a common—its value as an open place for recreation and health-giving—this only began to be realised as the commons became few.

Fawcett, in his first professional lectures (1864), mentions the evils arising from enclosures.

[Sidenote: No room for the Cow and the Pig.]

‘He declared, from his own knowledge of the agricultural labourer, that cottagers could no longer keep a cow, a pig, or poultry; that the village greens had become extinct, and that the turnpike road was too often the only playground for the village children.

‘He doubted whether the enclosure of commons, involving the breaking up of pastures, had, in point of fact, permanently increased the wealth of the country; but the wealth in any case was dearly purchased if purchased by a diminution of the labourers’ comforts. The compensation paid to the poor commoner had generally been spent by the first receiver, whilst his descendants were permanently deprived of many of the little advantages which might have helped to eke out their scanty resources.’

The procedure whereby a common was enclosed was one that dealt very hardly on the poorer folk, and made it very difficult, if not impossible, for them to make their objections felt. The matter went before the Enclosure Commissioners, and they every year presented a Bill to Parliament recommending such enclosures as they had at that time approved. The Bill would be passed almost without investigation, as part of the routine work of Parliament.

Fawcett appreciated from a child the blessings of open free tracts for fresh air and fun. He watched with distress and indignation the rights of the people to their woods and open spaces being put aside, their commons seized and fenced off, their forests appropriated and their venerable trees cut down—and all this without protest, nay by the consent of a Government which undertook to be the guardian of the people’s interests. Their historic right in Epping Forest, Hampstead Heath, and many other places were ignored in mean schemes for appropriating the land and raising paltry sums by selling it as farm or building land, or by marketing the timber. Fawcett might have chanted in his sonorous voice the following apt and classic verse:

The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common, But lets the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose.

[Sidenote: Battle of Wisley Common.]

The annual enclosure Bill, introduced in 1869, submitted over six thousand acres for enclosure, of which only three acres were to be reserved for the public. In this area was included the beautiful common of Wisley. It chanced that a resident near Wisley, who was a member of Parliament, strongly objected to enclosures, and to this one in particular, and he drew the attention of the House to the case. The Minister in charge of the Bill agreed to withdraw Wisley and refer it to a select committee, but said, at the same time, that it would be obviously unfair to stop unopposed enclosures, and he proposed to proceed with the rest of the Bill.

Fawcett, who joined in the debate, was made a member of this committee, but his interest and energy went further. The Wisley case had fixed his attention on the nature of the Bill itself, and he saw that there was every reason to suppose that similar but unnoticed abuses were occurring. The Bill had almost reached its final stage in the House of Commons, but Fawcett was not to be stopped. He gave notice that ‘upon the third reading he should move for a recommittal of the Bill in order that a better provision might be made for allotments.’ This motion created a great outcry. Why this interference? Parliament had been getting along most harmoniously with the Enclosure Commission. Why change this comfortable order of things and create delay and inconvenience to those interested in making enclosures? Fawcett had a hearty contempt for this comfort and convenience at the expense of the poor. He continued his efforts to stop the passage of the Bill.

[Sidenote: Outwitting the Whips.]

The Government Whips, whose business it is to get business done, tried to evade Fawcett’s opposition by arranging for the Bill to be discussed at awkward times. They arranged for it to come on half an hour after midnight, after the main business of the sitting was finished. Night after night it would be put off on one excuse or another, and Fawcett and the small band of friends who supported him would wait in vain. None the less, they took turns and tried to be always on guard, for they knew that their absence would be the signal for hurrying the Bill through. Fawcett used to tell this story with glee: one night, as he had a very bad cold, he sent a message to the Whips asking to have the motion postponed again as had been so frequently done before. He had no answer, but trusting that his request would be granted, he went home to bed. A friend who dropped in to see him suggested that it would be unwise to relax guard even for the night. Fawcett thereupon hurled on his clothes and arrived to find the House about to pass the obnoxious Bill.

The wily Whip started ‘like a guilty thing surprised,’ and admitted good-naturedly the failure of his tactics, and gave a formal undertaking to defer the Bill then and to arrange for it to be brought on later at a reasonable hour. Then, at last, Fawcett moved his resolution, dwelt upon the injustice to the labourer, of the absurdly small reservations for public allotments, protested at the attitude of the speakers for the Government, who shirked all responsibility beyond confirming the action of the commissioners. On his motion a committee was appointed to consider the working of the present system, and the expediency of better provision for recreation and allotment grounds.

[Sidenote: Fawcett opposes the traditional.]

In committee Fawcett opposed the existing system. The Enclosure Commissioners and their supporters were content with the doctrine, that ‘the final cause of an enclosure commission is naturally to enclose,’ and considered it advantageous to get rid of common rights which obstructed a more profitable employment of the land. Surely, they claimed, it is a hardship to prevent the owners of any piece of property from distributing their various rights on terms upon which they all agree. Fawcett argued that the agreement was illusory. Country gentlemen and farmers had looked after themselves, but the cottager had been put off with some trifle, spent as soon as received.

[Sidenote: Withypool Parish Clerk.]

Fawcett was particularly delighted with the evidence given by Mr. J. Reed, parish clerk of Withypool. When asked how far people would have to go for an open space, the witness replied, ‘They could not find one for miles except they did go on the common.’ ‘Is there no common within reach of an ordinary walk?’ ‘No, he would not want any more recreation by the time he came to any other common. The people say they will be as badly off as in a town.’ ‘Are there no fields where they can walk?’ ‘Yes, they can trespass, if they like that.’

The committee’s report, after vigorous discussion, accepted the chief principles advocated by Fawcett; ‘Parliamentary scrutiny was to become real and searching.’ Bills should be more carefully prepared in future. It was even admitted to be questionable whether enclosures were always beneficial.

Thus was a first great battle won for the safety of the commons. Others had felt the wrong as well as Fawcett, and supported him loyally, but it was his bulldog tenacity and his doing the disagreeable thing that finally throttled the Annual Enclosures Bill and stopped the mechanical process by which so many harmful enclosures were made.

[Sidenote: Sir Robert Hunter.]

Fawcett made a notable speech against this Bill. The late Sir Robert Hunter, who saw much of Fawcett at this time, says: ‘Mr. Fawcett’s memory was very remarkable, apart from the recognition of voices. I remember an instance of this which struck me very much. He was making a stand against the enclosure of rural commons; the question arose whether certain enclosures which had been commenced should be carried out or abandoned. There were some twenty or thirty cases, and Mr. Fawcett in a speech to the House of Commons gave figured details of each case, the whole area of each common, the extent of the allotments for fields, for gardens and a host of other particulars.

[Sidenote: The Style for the House.]

But all his friends were not so appreciative. Lord Courtney tells how Fawcett on one occasion took a Liverpool man of little humour down to Cambridge for the Christmas dinner. In return for his hospitality the guest rewarded Fawcett by fearless and supercilious criticism of his method of speaking, saying, ‘Fawcett, you haven’t got the style for the House of Commons!’ Fawcett accepted the criticism in good part and his friend undertook to show how to speak, rising to his feet and gesticulating dramatically and making himself greatly absurd. Fawcett, after a little good-natured listening, excused himself on the plea of an engagement, saying, ‘Thanks ever so much. Edward,’ indicating his guide, who was present, ‘is a first-rate reporter, and will tell me the rest of your speech when I return.’ With which he flung gaily out of the room, leaving his instructor agape.

Perhaps he had fled to go skating. His enthusiasm for this sport was unquenchable. A Cambridge friend of those days writes:

‘Fawcett insisted that skating was best on the first day of a thaw. He would come to my room, calling in his cheerful, loud voice, “Hullo, are you going skating?” More than once I argued with him without avail that it was dangerous to skate when the ice was thinning. He was deaf to all reason, and would haul me out on the river, where he would skate ankle deep in water. Well I remember my alarm once when I saw him—he was heading full tilt towards a big hole. I shouted to him to steer clear of it, myself horrified at his imminent danger. When he barely escaped the opening he called out cheerily. “Oh, don’t worry, it will be all right!” Shod with his skates he was absolutely without fear.’