VISCOUNT CLIVErose to put a question to the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department. There were at present a great number of cases ready to be inserted in the Supplementary Enclosure Bill; and he wished to know whether the right hon. Baronet intended to bring forward that Bill during the present Session. Those interested in the matter were extremely anxious that such a Bill should be brought forward.
§ SIR G. GREYreplied, that the General Enclosure Act provided that the Commissioners of Enclosures should present an annual report to Parliament, or rather that they should present an annual report to the Secretary of State, which it would be his duty to lay before Parliament. In that report the Commissioners were to state all cases of enclosure which they were prepared to recommend, and then the authority of Parliament must be taken before those recommendations could be carried into effect; and if Parliament approved of the enclosures recommended, they could be carried out under the general Act. A report had been laid upon the Table of the House two months ago, and an Act was passed to authorize the enclosures recommended in that report. The report, however, included only a few months of the year; the period over which it extended commenced soon after the beginning of the Session of Parliament, and ended with the month of May. A Bill was passed in May, authorizing the seven cases of enclosure which that period embraced. A separate report had not since then been laid upon the Table of the House, but from private information which he received he was enabled to state that fifteen cases had since then come under the notice of the Commissioners; and, doubtless, they might make a special report on the subject. When that report was made, it would be his duty to consider what could advantageously be proposed during the present Session of Parliament. He doubted whether the general Act would allow him to bring in such a Bill as would meet the case. If numerous cases required it, and the Bill was supposed to be necessary, he should have no objection to take charge of it.
The EARL of LINCOLNsaid, that he had carried the general Bill through the 1231 House, and assured the right hon. Baronet that no such difficulty as he apprehended would be found to exist.