HC Deb 06 April 1865 vol 178 cc769-81

Order for Second Reading read.

VISCOUNT BURY,

in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that before the establishment of the National Rifle Association and the establishment of the Volunteers, Wimbledon Common was little better than an undrained swamp; it was not much frequented, and was in a very neglected state. After that time, Lord Spencer, who was the lord of the manor, having given leave to certain Rifle corps to errect butts upon the Common, and to the National Rifle Association to hold their annual meetings there, a great improvement was made in the condition of the Common. The inhabitants of the villas surrounding the Common viewed those meetings of the Volunteers as an encroachment upon their privacy, and at first offered considerable objections to their presence on the Common. But ultimately these objections were considerably weakened, as it was found that practically the presence of the Volunteers was rather advantageous than otherwise. The National Rifle Association laid out large sums for drainage and other improvements, so that the Common presented a far more agreeable aspect than it had ever done before. But the question as to the rights of the lord of the manor, and those of the people in the vicinity having been once raised, it was not easy to set it at rest. A deputation on the part of the inhabitants of Putney and Wimbledon waited upon Lord Spencer to represent to him the irregularities that were occasioned by the meetings of the Volunteers on the Common, in the shape of gipseys who assembled there, and conducted themselves in a manner detrimental to the morals and comfort of the residents of the neighbourhood. Lord Spencer evinced every disposition to discourage those practices, and requested a meeting of the inhabitants of the vicinity at Wimbledon on a certain day. A great number of persons thereupon attended, when Lord Spencer detailed to them an outline of his scheme in regard to the Common. The noble Lord proposed to dedicate a considerable portion of the Common to the use of the public, reserving to himself only the rights which he exercised over certain other parts of the land. The scheme of Lord Spencer received in the first instance the approval of the meeting; but it was subsequently found that great objections were entertained by many of the inhabitants of the vicinity to the way in which Lord Spencer proposed to manage the Common, and to the inclosure of it. Things were in this position when the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Doulton) moved for the appointment of a Committee to consider the question of the open spaces in the vicinity of the metropolis, and the second reading of the present Bill was postponed until that Committee should have had the opportunity of considering the whole subject. In consequence of the illness of the hon. Member for Lambeth, the hon. and learned Member for South-wark (Mr. Locke) presided over the Committee, and after hearing evidence for several days the Committee agreed to a Report which, in his opinion, the House would not be inclined on consideration to support, as it did not agree with the evidence, and recommended a scheme amounting to something very like confiscation; and it was in opposition to the opinion of that Committee that he now asked the House to read Lord Spencer's Bill a second time. The object of Lord Spencer was to divide Wimbledon Common, which comprised about 1,000 acres, into two parts. He proposed to surrender his rights of lord of the manor over 688 acres, reserving his rights only to two acres near the windmill in the centre of the Common and the remainder of the 1,000 acres. Lord Spen- cer proposed in respect to those 688 acres to make the necessary roads, to erect a post and rail fence for the purpose of preventing cattle from straying over the Common, and to prevent the commission of nuisances by tramps. That part of the scheme by which it was proposed to put up a fence had been objected to, and Lord Spencer, who wished to dedicate the Common to the public in the way most in accordance with public feeling, would not insist on the erection of a fence if the House thought it undesirable; but it was proposed to compensate the common rights, if any existed, on the part of the Common to be dedicated to the public. The inhabitants of Putney, Wimbledon, and Roehampton very much objected to the common rights being touched, probably because they were conscious that those rights, if examined into, would prove to have merged in Lord Spencer; but the noble Lord contended that the Common could not be fully dedicated to the public and given up to trustees until the common rights were swept away. Now came one of the points to which the opponents of the Bill greatly objected, and which Lord Spencer, with great liberality, was willing to waive. The cost of the improvements on the 688 acres, including draining and putting the Common into a satisfactory state, would amount to a considerable sum, and Lord Spencer, having given up rights of considerable value, could hardly be expected to put his hands further into his pocket and provide the money for those improvements. The noble Lord therefore suggested that the improvements in one part of the Common should be carried out by selling parcels of land in another part, over which he held equal rights. The portions he thus proposed to sell were marked blue, brown, and green upon the map now in the hands of many hon. Members. If the blue portion did not return a sufficient sum to defray the expenditure, then he proposed to sell the brown portion, and in the event of the sum realized being even then found deficient, then to resort to the sale of that portion marked green on the map. Now, those living in the vicinity of those particular lands made grave objections to this part of the proposal, believing that their property would be seriously damaged by the sale of those lands, and they had, on several occasions, declared their intention to raise the necessary funds for the improvements of the 688 acres by subscriptions amongst themselves, or by the levying of a local rate. Lord Spencer was quite willing to waive that part of his scheme, provided adequate means could be raised by subscriptions and a local rate; but it was by no means certain that those proposals of those persons could be effectually carried out; and therefore Lord Spencer insisted upon retaining the selling clauses of the Bill, with a proviso that they were only to operate after the lapse of a certain period, and in the event of the failure of adequate means from subscriptions and a local rate. There were other points of his scheme in respect to which Lord Spencer and some of the inhabitants were at issue; but it was likely that on consideration the opposition to those parts of the scheme would terminate. With regard to the management, it was originally proposed that Lord Spencer should be the sole manager. That, however, being objected to, Lord Spencer consented to waive his first proposal, and to vest the management—first in himself, as lord of the manor, and then with him in a Commissioner of the Crown lands, and one other person to be nominated by the Government. The inhabitants of Wimbledon, Putney, and Roehampton proposed, in addition to those trustees, three others representing the interests of the inhabitants of Wimbledon, Roehampton, and Putney—making altogether six trustees. Now, Lord Spencer objected to so many as six, believing that the three trustees he proposed would be much better able to manage the property in the interests of the public generally than a board of six gentlemen; he thought that by such an arrangement the board would be practically a local board, because the local trustees being always on the spot would probably always constitute a majority. It was, moreover, Lord Spencer's wish not to put the management into local hands, but to dedicate the Common to the public generally, and the noble Lord therefore objected to the change suggested by the inhabitants of the vicinity. There had been opposition shown by some of the inhabitants to the meetings of the National Rifle Association, and Lord Spencer, in a national point of view, thought it essential that the Volunteers should4be allowed the use of the Common, and he did not wish to put it out of his power to allow them that use. Lord Spencer, as lord of the manor, was in as good position with regard to manorial property as any other lord of the manor. Indeed, the witnesses before the Committee on Open Spaces showed that, owing to the peculiar circumstances of Wimbledon Manor, Lord Spencer had rights greater than other lords of the manor. It was objected before the Committee that there was no evidence as to the court rolls before them, but it was impossible to produce them, and it was unnecessary to do so, because all that was necessary was for Lord Spencer to show that he prima facie possessed the rights he claimed, it being for the House to decide on the second reading whether or not those rights were good in law. If that evidence was worthless he was willing to throw it aside and treat it as a mere assertion; but then he asked that the same rule should be applied to the evidence on the other side, as all the witnesses who spoke as to custom admitted they had never had an opportunity of examining the court rolls. The lord of the manor was, however, willing to give up his legal rights provided this Bill was passed, and when the Bill got into Committee that question could be further inquired into and decided. The Committee appointed to inquire into Open Spaces around the metropolis had exceeded its duty in the Report it made. It should have simply been for or against the scheme, leaving it to the Committee of that House to deal with it in the ordinary way; but instead of that it adopted a Report which amounted, in fact, to confiscation. He congratulated those who who appointed that Committee on the successful manner in which they got together a number of hon. Members who agreed with them in their views, and in this instance the Chairman of the Committee—a Chairman was generally an important person—the hon. and learned Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke) had made up his mind upon the question before he went into the Committee. ["Order!"] He begged pardon if he had said anything irregular to the House, and he would not allude further to it. The Committee, as he had already stated, reported what amounted to confiscation if supported by the House—namely, that Wimbledon should not be enclosed; and secondly, that there was no necessity for enclosing it. So far Lord Spencer was willing to amend his scheme; but as regarded his legal rights no Committee could deprive him of them. The Committee further reported that the Statute of Merton ought to be repealed—a step which certainly could not be determined upon except after considerable investigation and dis- cussion relative to the legal rights enjoyed under that statute—whereas this Committee had reported adversely to the scheme and for the repeal of the Statute of Merton, after having had only three days' sitting. The opposition, he believed, principally came from the villa owners around the Common, who had no other rights than as a portion of the public. Now, Mr. Wingrove Cooke in his evidence stated that all the right which could by possibility accrue to the public in common was that in every case of inclosure a sufficient amount in proportion to the population should be reserved for the purposes of recreation. In the case of a Common with 10,000 inhabitants in its immediate vicinity, ten acres should be reserved, and so on in proportion. Now in proportion to the population of Wimbledon four acres only could be so claimed, consequently the villa owners in asserting their legal rights would only be entitled to four acres; whilst Lord Spencer, by this Bill, offered to give up his indisputed right of 688 acres for the recreation of the public. With regard to the commoners, Mr. Wingrove Cooke stated in his evidence that commoners were trespassers if they went there for any other purpose than looking after their stock. That was surely a matter of small money value, and might easily be arranged, especially as five to one of the commoners were in favour of the Bill. He asked the House, then, to read that Bill the second time. Lord Spencer had promised to submit the matter to the House and take their decision upon it, provided they did not attack his legal rights. But if they said that he had no legal rights to give, then the noble Lord must consider himself absolved from the promises he had made, and at liberty to act as he might be advised. But seeing that Lord Spencer was willing to give up to the public rights for which a large sum had already been offered—seeing that four or five railways and two or three hotels had been before Parliament during the last few Sessions, seeking for land in that locality, and seeing that it was very difficult for Lord Spencer to resist these claims, and that it might be impossible for him to resist them with effect for a length of time, he thought a case was made out for reading that Bill the second time, and he begged to move its second reading accordingly.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Viscount Bury.)

MR. COX,

in moving that the Bill be read the second time that day six months, said, that the Committee on Open Spaces near the metropolis had gone fully and fairly into the subject referred to by the noble Lord (Viscount Bury), and had decided that it was not expedient that Wimbledon Common should be fenced round or inclosed. The noble Lord said that Lord Spencer would be willing to do away with the fence, but still he asked the House to read a second time a Bill which gave power to fence and inclose. Moreover, the Bill would extinguish the rights of common, and if those rights were put an end to, then the public would cease to have any right over the Common. He opposed that scheme, not in the interest of any villa owners, but in behalf of the three-and-a-half millions of persons living in the metropolis. Not a single witness came before the Committee who did not answer that from time immemorial the public had gone over that land when and where they liked, without interruption from anybody. The land was thereby brought within the description of a village green, and Mr. Win-grove Cooke did not deny that in that case it was out of the power of the lord of the manor to inclose or touch it. He asked the House, therefore, to support its own Committee, and reject the second reading of the Bill.

MR. DRAX,

in seconding the Amendment, contended that Lord Spencer's rights were not so large as had been assumed. In 1860 that noble Lord attempted to inclose a portion of Wimbledon Common adjoining his (Mr. Drax's) property, and a fence six feet high was put up there. He brought an action against the noble Lord, which was to have been tried at Croydon Assizes; but after putting the trial off as long as he could the noble Lord at last allowed judgment to go against him by default, and the fence had to be pulled down again and the land thrown open to the public. That was conclusive proof that Lord Spencer and his tenants had no right to inclose without an Act of Parliament. He knew something of the rights of lords of the manor, and they were very trifling. Lord Spencer had been allowed to cut turf and sell it for his benefit and to the injury of the freeholders and copyholders. He had also sold sand and gravel; the only other right which a lord of the manor had was to timber, and of that there was very little on Wimbledon Common. Lord Spencer had not an inch of land on the Common. He thought Sir Thomas Wilson had a greater right to inclose Hampstead Heath than Lord Spencer had to inclose Wimbledon Common.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Cox.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

MR. LOCKE

said, that having been Chairman of the Committee referred to by the noble Lord (Viscount Bury), he thought it necessary to make one or two observations upon what had fallen from the noble Lord. He denied that he had given a partial judgment in this case. He had failed on this as on former occasions to understand exactly what it was the noble Lord meant. The noble Lord had appeared in the Committee with a large brief, and conducted the examination of the witnesses, prompted by Lord Spencer, very much as if he were Lord Spencer's counsel. Lord Spencer's solicitor gave to his (Mr. Locke's) mind the most ridiculous evidence with reference to Lord Spencer's rights, and in addition the Committee were asked to receive the opinions of counsel, without the cases being put in upon which those opinions were founded. The Committee offered to receive them, provided the cases were put in; but the noble Lord declined to do so, and the Committee declined to receive the opinion without the case. That was the course that had been pursued throughout. He was willing to have voted for the second reading of the Bill if he could have placed any reliance upon the noble Lord's (Viscount Bury) statements; but having listened attentively to him, he was unable to discover that he pledged himself to anything. It was said that Lord Spencer was giving up a great deal, but after all the attention he had paid to the evidence he was unable to find it out; and he confessed that after applying his mind to the subject he honestly believed that Lord Spencer intended to retain those acres which the hon. and learned Member for Wallingford (Mr. Malins) pointed out, and what the noble Lord intended to do with them was best known to himself. The case had been mixed up from beginning to end in the most extraordinary and complicated manner, and no Member of the Committee could for five minutes together clearly see what the noble Lord intended to do. Lord Spencer's solicitor, when he came to give his evidence, painted a lord of the manor such as a lord of the manor had never before been painted on the face of the earth. He was, according to that gentleman's evidence, the most powerful lord of the manor it was possible to conceive, for he was able to do anything and everything with everybody; and that if he was not allowed by Parliament to do what he liked, he could take the Common and act with it as he pleased. If the noble Lord was not prepared to abide by the Report of the Committee he should vote for the Amendment.

MR. LOWE

said, he was afraid the House might be led unintentionally to do some injustice in this matter; he therefore begged their attention while he very briefly stated what he believed to be the facts of the case. Lord Spencer was the lord of the manor of Wimbledon, and the Common belonged to him in fee simple, subject to the rights of commoners, and subject to certain roads and rights of way. Wimbledon was resorted to by the public for purposes of amusement, but the lord of the manor could by his mere will exclude the public from it. In this position he offered to surrender the use of 688 acres of this valuable suburban land, of which he was the owner in fee simple, subject only to the rights he had described. He wished the subject should be inquired into by the Committee on Open Spaces. That Committee had inquired into it, and the I Committee had decided by the casting I vote of the Chairman—["No, no!"]—that this Common should not be enclosed, and that the common rights ought not to be extinguished. Surely, when a gentleman came forward and offered to give up 688 acres of valuable land for the amusement of the public, it was for the House to inquire whether it was desirable that the offer should be accepted. Surely it should not be rejected without inquiry? The hon. and learned Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke) said the Committee had reported on the case; but he had omitted to mention that they reported with reference to this particular case of Wimbledon Common that the Act of Merton, which had been in force for 630 years, should be repealed. That Act said that a lord of the manor might enclose, if he could do ss without prejudice to the rights of commoners; and to punish Lord Spencer for offering 688 acres of his land for public amusement, the Committee proposed not only to repudiate the offer but to deprive him of the right he had of enclosing any part of the Common without prejudice to the commoners. He said that was not a question to be decided in that off-hand way. The Committee had exhibited much animus, and had decided by the casting vote of the Chairman that Wimbledon Common ought not to be enclosed; and he thought that if the House really wished to do justice in this matter they would send it to be inquired into by a Committee upstairs.

MR. ROEBUCK

thought the House was at present incapable of giving any opinion on this matter. They were totally unfit to decide the question, and ought to send it to a proper tribunal. The noble Lord had unwisely entered into the matter of the Bill. They had nothing to do with it. In common sense and common decency they were bound to send it to the ordinary tribunal for such inquiries—a Select Committee. He knew nothing of Lord Spencer, but private rights could not be dealt with in an off hand manner.

MR. LOCKE KING

thought it was desirable, in the interests of the public, and of those residing in the neighbourhood, that the Bill should be read a second time. He was not willing to discuss the speech of the noble Lord (Viscount Bury), but he wished the House to bear in mind that several objectionable parts of the Bill had been withdrawn. The proposal to enclose a portion of the Common formed no longer a part of the scheme, and the power of selling the 300 acres only remained part of the Bill, upon the condition that the inhabitants were unable to raise sufficient funds for the contemplated improvements. It would be a great boon to the public to obtain something like 1,000 acres for ever; and if this Bill were not passed there was a possibility that future lords of the manor would deprive them of it. He thought the Bill should be read a second time, and sent to a Select Committee.

MR. PEACOCKE

said, that having sat in the Committee upon this Bill, he had formed the highest opinion of the motives of Lord Spencer in bringing it forward, and fully believed Lord Spencer was convinced that he had a full and good title to the Common. At the same time, however, he thought the noble Lord had been badly advised. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe), who was always prepared to give an ex cathedra opinion on any subject, appeared to entertain the opinion that Lord Spencer could deal with the Common precisely as he pleased; but he could tell the right hon. Gentleman that if he had known a little more of the case and had sat in the Committee, he would have found that the rights of Lord Spencer over the Common were very doubtful and questionable. If Lord Spencer were prepared to abandon the inclosure and the sale of the land, provided a rate could be raised for the object in view, he would advise the House to agree to the second reading of the Bill, and would earnestly entreat the hon. Member for Finsbury to withdraw his Amendment, because, if that were adopted, it would give to the country a false impression as to the feelings of the House on the subject. Every opportunity should be given for arriving at a fair and impartial conclusion on the matter.

LORD ELCHO

supported the second reading of the Bill, and said he had been in communication with his noble Friend Lord Spencer on the subject, and he thought that very great injustice would be done to Lord Spencer, and to his motives if the Bill were rejected, and not brought under the consideration of a rightly constituted Committee. He bad no interest in the scheme proposed by the Bill, and his evidence before the Committee would show that he Was perfectly impartial. His own sympathy had always been in favour of keeping this and other commons uninclosed. The mere post and rail might not be much obstruction, but there was a strong feeling against inclosures. He was authorized by Lord Spencer distinctly to state that he was prepared to allow the Bill to go before a Committee on the clear understanding that he gave up all idea of inclosing the Common, and that he would postpone the operation of the sale clauses so as to give time to ascertain whether a rate would be raised. He would, therefore, join in asking the hon. Member for Finsbury to withdraw his Amendment and allow the Bill to be read a second time.

MR ALDERMAN ROSE

thought he was speaking for the majority of the Committee when he said they were not prepared to offer any opposition to the second reading of the Bill. He believed, when the Bill went before a Select Committee, there would be formed a very different impression of the motives or public spirit of the noble Lord who had brought the measure forward than was now entertained. He thought that the further the inquiry was pushed the more clearly it would appear that Lord Spencer was not giving up any rights for the benefit of the public; but that, on the contrary, under this Bill, he would obtain a right to 300 acres of the Common, of which at present he had no right to dispose. The rights which had been assumed were of a very questionable and doubtful character. Instead of the Report of the Committee being carried by the casting vote of the Chairman, as represented by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne, there were only four voted against it, all the other Members being in its favour. It was true that the casting vote of the Chairman was once taken, but it was only on a technical point.

MR. COWPER

said, it was a good maxim that we should not look a gift horse in the mouth; but, in this instance, he thought the more the proffered gift was looked at the more valuable we would find it to be. He thought the House would make a great mistake if they did not allow the Bill to be read a second time. The object of that Bill was to secure to the public for ever the unrestricted use of Wimbledon Common. Whatever might be Lord Spencer's rights over the 688 acres offered to be given up to the public by the Bill, those rights had been freely given up. A combination might possibly hereafter be made between the lord of the manor and those having common rights, by which the public would be deprived of the use of the Common; but this Bill would prevent the possibility of that. There were details in the scheme which had met with great objection, and he thought that in the framing of the scheme Lord Spencer had not been well advised; but the objectionable parts of the original scheme had been withdrawn. The Committee had come, by a majority, to the conclusion that there were three objections to the scheme. The first was the proposal to place a fence round the Common; the second, the selling of land j and third, the extinction of common rights. The noble Lord who had moved the second reading of the Bill, and the hon. Member who had seconded the Motion, both said that Lord Spencer had agreed to withdraw his proposal for fencing the Common; and to abandon the power of selling land, if the necessary funds could be obtained, either by means of voluntary-contributions, or by a rate levied upon the residents in the locality. They had been told that the residents were perfectly able and willing to provide the money, and they might, therefore, safely conclude that no sale would take place. The third point might safely be left to the decision of a Committee upstairs.

SIR GEORGE BOWYER

thought that the scheme embodied in the Bill ought not to be discussed or settled by a large popular Assembly, but that it ought to be referred to a Committee, for the purpose of being subjected to that research and legal acumen which were always necessary in cases involving questions of common rights and rights of lords of manors. It would, therefore, be very imprudent and injudicious on the part of the House were they to refuse their assent to the second reading in order that the Bill might be referred to a competent tribunal. The Committee had reported that the Statute of Merton ought to be repealed. Now he did not believe that there were ten Members of the House who had ever read that statute.

Question, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read 2°, and committed.