§ MR. BOORDsaid, if the Forms of the House had admitted of it, he would have moved an Amendment to the effect—
That the action of the War Department in taking a lease of Plumstead Common from the Lords of the Manor has hindered its preservation by means of a scheme under 'The Metropolitan Commons Act, 1866,' as a much needed place of recreation for the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and that therefore the proposed renewal or continuation of such lease is undesirable and inexpedient;but, being unable to do so, he must content himself with calling attention to the subject. The War Department had the option of determining the lease of which he complained on the 25th of March next, hence it was necessary to take the earliest opportunity of bringing the subject under the notice of the House, in order to prevent, if possible, its continuation. Plumstead Common was part of the waste of the manor of Plumstead, which had been in the possession of Queen's College, Oxford, since the year 1685. There bad always been a considerable number of freehold tenants of the manor exercising common rights of the usual description, as was shown by the Court rolls and by the list of commoners which had been made out from time to time since 1691. The last of these lists bore date so recently as December, 1847. No dispute had occurred between the commoners and the lords of the manor until 1859, when the latter engaged the services of a new steward—a Mr. White—who set about improving the property of his employers without reference to the rights of the commoners or the interests of the inhabitants. His object seemed to have been to dispossess the commoners of their rights by any and every means, and so to acquire for the lords the unencumbered freehold of the land. To prevent those and other encroachments, a suit was instituted in 1866 by four commoners, on behalf of themselves and all other freehold tenants of the manor, against the lords. This was heard by the Master of the Rolls in 1870, and decided against the College; and that decision was confirmed, on appeal, by Lord Chancellor Hatherley in 1871. The Metropolitan Commons Act was passed five years previously, in 1866, but nothing could be done in the in- 959 terval between that date and the appeal, owing to the litigation which was pending. After the appeal was decided, however, the Metropolitan Board of Works made three attempts to procure the preservation of the Common by means of a scheme under the Metropolitan Commons Act, but these attempts were frustrated by the claims set up by the War Office and the lords of the manor. On the last occasion this lease was discovered to have been taken by the then Secretary of State for War, Lord Cardwell; and on that discovery being made, all hope of success had been given up, in consequence of the antagonistic attitude of the Government. The lease conveyed manorial rights over 77 acres for 99 years, at an annual rent of £315, with the option of purchase for £10,000; and the objection to it was that it placed an entirely fictitious value on the rights of the lords of the manor—a value calculated to frustrate any scheme for the preservation of the Common. Besides that, it involved an extravagant expenditure of public money, as he would presently show. Questions had been put to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War in previous Sessions, as to the nature of the right by which he claimed to exercise troops on the Common, in reply to which he had declined to disclose his title, leaving it to be implied that he relied on the lease, but he (Mr. Boord) understood that that claim, if it had been made, was now given up, and a prescriptive right asserted in its place. If, then, the Secretary of State had such a prescriptive right, what, he would ask, was the value of the lease? It was a demise subject to all existing rights, including those of the commoners. His right hon. Friend might tell him that there were no commoners, but there was at least one in that House the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. Goldsmid) and, for the purpose of asserting their rights, it had been decided that one was as good as a hundred. He presumed he should be told that the object of this lease was to enable the War Office, by acquiring the rights of the lords to the minerals, to maintain the surface of the ground unbroken; but the commoners had a right to take gravel, and if they desired to do so—though he would be sorry to recommend such a course—they could dig it in places most inconvenient to his right hon. 960 Friend. He would no doubt also say that it was his duty to provide for the military requirements of the country; that he (Mr. Boord) readily admitted, but it was quite possible to do so without injuriously affecting the interests of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood—a crowded locality, occupied chiefly by the workers in the Royal Arsenal, who greatly needed recreation after their hours of toil. Of the 77 acres in question, not more than 50 could be used with any advantage by the troops, on account of the irregular shape of the Common, the roads, and other obstructions; but there was plenty of land close by, of the same quality of soil as the Common, and of no great value either for building or agricultural purposes, which he believed might be purchased for something like £200 per acre. If the right hon. Gentleman were to lay out £10,000 in that way, he would be able to acquire an unencumbered freehold for something like the price he was now paying for mere manorial rights which were practically valueless. He understood that negotiations were proceeding, and that an arrangement was likely to be made between the War Office and the Metropolitan Board of Works. It was high time that something was done, and he would be very glad to hear that a basis for agreement had been found. In the meantime he would ask his right hon. Friend to explain of what value this lease really was, and what were his expectations of a speedy settlement of the difficulty.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, it was very natural that the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Boord) should wish Plumstead Common to be a place of recreation for his constituents, and he might tell the hon. Member that he (Mr. G. Hardy) had no personal interest in the question. He must decline to enter into the details with the hon. Member; he was only a trustee for the public, but he had the greatest possible interest as such trustee in providing that the Artillery at Woolwich should have a proper place of exercise, and on the ground in question they had exercised for a century or nearly so. Therefore it was not likely he should disclose his title in that House while all sorts of litigation were going on and when attempts were made to deprive the Government of the use of the ground. The hon. Member had 961 asked why was the lease taken? Anyone acquainted with the circumstances belonging to Commons would not be surprised that his (Mr. G. Hardy's) Predecessor, Lord Cardwell, finding that litigation was threatened, leased the rights of the lords of the manor so that he should not have them against him. Whatever those rights might confer the War Office now possessed. Those rights had been valued by competent valuers, and he thought that the sum paid for them—£315 per annum for the use of 77 acres—was not excessive, especially when it was remembered that it was in the immediate neighbourhood of large places like Woolwich and Greenwich. His hon. Friend was so obliging as to say that the Government might purchase all the land in the neighbourhood they wanted at £200 an acre. He had had a good deal of experience under the Loan Act of Lord Cardwell, which authorized an expenditure of £3,500,000 for brigade depôts in various parts of the country. He wished his hon. Friend were the valuer on whom they had to rely in such cases. But when his hon. Friend said that land in such a neighbourhood could be bought by the Government at such a price, he offered a most delusive bait, at which he (Mr. G. Hardy) was not likely to rise. If his hon. Friend thought that the outlay of £315 a-year was extravagant, he could raise the question on the Estimates. He was not prepared to dispute—and that was not the place for disputing—whether there were commoners or not, neither would he admit there were any; but as far as the proceedings had gone, it was notorious that only a few days ago an attempt was made in the Court of the Master of the Rolls to obtain an injunction against the Secretary of State for War for using the Common for the exercise of the Artillery. The Master of the Rolls would not hear of it. He was clearly of opinion that no title had been set up, and even if there had been, he said he would not grant an injunction against the Crown for using the Common for that purpose upon an interlocutory motion. Then what was the position of things? Last year he (Mr. G. Hardy) said, he was as anxious as anyone else that the privileges which the people enjoyed—although they had no right—should not be taken away from them, and that as far as possible the War Department 962 would not interfere with them. With regard to Wormholt Scrubs, he took the same position there when litigation was carried on, and he made concessions to the Metropolitan Board of Works as the representatives of the public, which had been declared to be satisfactory. With regard to Woolwich Common, it was a fair place for exercising artillery at certain times of the year; but, owing to its being swampy in winter, it would be ruinous to use it. Plumstead Common, however, was practically hard gravel, where Artillery could be exercised without anything like the damage that would occur at Woolwich. Only the other day he received a deputation from the Metropolitan Board of Works to see if any arrangement could be come to with regard to Plumstead Common. He did not think it advisable on the present occasion to go into the nature of that proposal or the conditions offered by him, and ho would only say that the rights of the lords of the manor did not affect the question. They only made it easier for the War Office to negotiate with the Metropolitan Board of Works than if the lords of the manor stood separate from the War Office. The fact was, as he had said, the War Office held those rights, and consequently were in a better position to negotiate with the Metropolitan Board of Works, and therefore he might say that he had authorized the legal secretary of the War Department to enter into a correspondence with the solicitor of the Board, which might lead to the War Department giving the public a right over part of the Common without interfering with the exercise of the Artillery, though he did not think that the public had any right to it. It was a great advantage to have this Common for the purposes of Artillery exercise, and it would be absurd to maintain a great Artillery depot at Woolwich without having due opportunities of exercising the men and horses. He declined to go into the question of title, which had been brought rather more frequently before the Courts than he liked. In the Courts, however, it might possibly be discussed before long. He would do all in his power to secure the privileges and enjoyment of the people without giving up the rights he held both for the War Department and the country. As long as attempts were made by litigation to deprive the State of the use of the Common for 963 Artillery purposes he would resist them, but in his negotiations with the Metropolitan Board of Works he would do all that was consistent with his duty to secure the Common for the recreation of the public.
MR. GOLDSMIDunderstood that the right hon. Gentleman opposite had disputed the fact whether there were any commoners of Plumstead Common.
MR. GOLDSMIDsaid, that he stood there as a Commoner of Plumstead Common, not by his own assertion, but by the decision of the late Master of the Rolls, and he would explain the position. In 1867 the suit now celebrated as the case of Warrick against Queen's College, Oxford (who were lords of the manor), was begun in reference to inclosures made by some persons of portions of the Common, under licence given by the steward of the College. Being a commoner, and feeling it his duty to support those who opposed the improper action of the steward, he (Mr. Goldsmid) had joined the other plaintiffs, and undertaken considerable responsibility in the matter. The case was fought before the late Master of the Rolls, and a decree was obtained against the College preventing any further inclosures, and enabling himself and his fellow-commoners to exercise the rights of Common which had been proved to exist. The College appealed to the Lords Justices, but the appeal was dismissed, it being decreed that the commoners had made out their rights. It was under those circumstances that the lords — they having no particular rights in the Common—granted a lease to the War Department and received £315 a-year. It was all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say it was a cheap arrangement. It appeared to him to involve this—that the lords, finding they could do nothing with the Common, transferred their useless rights to the War Department by this lease. There was not only Plumstead Common but also Bostall Heath; and though the Metropolitan Board of Works had taken steps in regard to the Heath under the Commons Act to place Conservators over it, they had done nothing for Plumstead Common, which was exactly in the same position, except that as the Government forsooth had stepped in in the way de- 964 scribed. A scheme for the preservation of the Common might involve action against the Government. It might be an expensive litigation; but he could not help thinking that the Board had acted in a pusillanimous manner in not looking after this property for the public, especially as the Master of the Rolls had so clearly laid down the respective rights of the parties to the suit. As to the allegation that the Common was only a bed of gravel, he would say that it was anything but that, until the Government cut up and destroyed the turf with their heavy artillery. Mr. De Morgan had interfered; but though a spirited, he was a misguided individual, and the persons who had acted with him were not commoners at all, and had no legal right in the matter. The Chairman of the Commons Preservation Society said the difficulty had been created by the action of the Government; and if they wished to retreat in a proper manner, the best thing to do would be to follow the course suggested by the hon. Member for Greenwich. He would like to ask the Attorney General whether, under the decree affirmed by the Lords Justices, the Crown had any power to interfere with the rights of the commoners?—and, if the Crown had not, it was not fair to say that the matter was in litigation, as it only remained for the Government to show their obedience to the law, and not to invade the rights of the commoners. Certainly, a more satisfactory statement ought to be made on the part of the Government than had been made by the Secretary of State for War.