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all the lands which the Lords of Manors had enclosed
should also be allowed to remain enclosed, for if the
word " hardship " has any signification at all in con-
nection with this matter, it means, that those who
have spent money in purchasing these enclosures,
or in turning them into cultivation, will lose that
money, but as their titles are just the same as those
of the Lords of Manors from whom they derive them
(as the Commissioners themselves declare in their First
Report), the hardship is to both Lords of Manors
and their grantees a question of amount; in the
case of the owners of these 740 acres it would be
measured by a loss of hundreds, in the case of the
Lords of Manors whose fences have been thrown
down, by thousands of pounds. Where then is the
difference of hardship ?
In point of fact, the Commissioners became, as it
was feared from the first they would become, the
advocates of the enclosers, and not the judges as
between them and the public. One of the Com-
missioners, Mr. Perry-Watlington, was a member of
the Committee of the House of Commons of 1863.
It is but necessary to turn to the proceedings of that
Committee to find how upon every division in the
Committee he was consistently on the side of the
enclosers against the public, and indeed there was
no doubt that he was put upon the Commission
to protect the interests of the enclosers. Another