9
WHAT IS THE LAW ?
To those whose knowledge of the Epping Forest Act, 1878, is merely
superficial, this question must present a dense mass of difficulties ; but to
anyone who has carefully studied the Act, this is not so. If anything is
certain and clear, it is the law bearing upon the pasture and pannage
rights of the cottage commoners and others. Unfortunately for the
cottagers, the Conservators have, by astute and artful devices, been
successful in obscuring the real and direct issue.
COTTAGERS QUITE SATISFIED WITH ACT.
The first point to be emphasized is this : the cottagers have been all
along and are still quite satisfied with the law as it stands, they believe
justly that their rights and privileges have been surely and safely guarded
by Parliament.
Lord Rookwood Supports the Claims of the Cottagers.
In this they have the sympathy and support of Lord Rookwood (Sir
Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), who was the Conservative minister who had
charge of the Epping Forest Bill in the House of Commons.
At the Public Hall, Loughton, he distinctly expressed his opinions on the
subject: he said that in his Bill he intended to safeguard the rights of the
cottage commoners, and he went even further than that, and said that he
believed his Bill did safeguard their rights. That is an important fact
which justifies up to the hilt all that the leaders of the poor commoners
have said or written in reference to their legal rights under the Act of
1878.
The Conservators Dissatisfied with the Act of 1878.
The second point is, that although the Conservators have ruthlessly and
with remarkable certitude confined their actions within their illegal inter-
pretation of the Act, by their past policy they have given us positive
evidence that they are dissatisfied with the law as it stands, and are
anxious to amend it, not in the interests of the poor cottagers, whose
friends they have claimed to be, but directly against those interests. Let
the fact be forced home in the minds of all who take an interest in this
question : that the Conservators, although professing to be the friends of
the cottagers, have promoted a Bill (47 and 48 Vict.—Sess. 1884) to destroy
some of their most ancient rights. A policy of such extraordinary
equivocation can scarcely ever have been rivalled by any other public
body.
How the Conservators Would Alter the Law.
To avoid any possibility of doubt in the minds of any, we here give
sections 3 and 4 of the Bill, which read as follows :—
"Section 3.—No person shall be entitled to depasture any animal in
the Forest or to exercise any commonable right in or respecting the
Forest, whose name is not for the time being on the Register of Com-