§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to a letter in "The Times" of Monday last, from Colonel Palmer, the sole surviving Verderer of Epping Forest, in which he states that if the Queen should see fit to appoint a Lord Warden, and cause a second Verderer to be elected, he would then be in a position to protect the rights of the Crown in the Forest for the benefit of the public? And, whether he is aware that the same gentleman stated, in his evidence before a Committee of the House in 1863, that Courts were actually held for the protection of the Forest up to the year 1854, "until the Commissioners of Woods and Forest and the Attorney General refused to give to such Courts the assistance and support which they had a right under the Act of Parliament to require and expect?"
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, in reply, that he did not contest the facts stated in the Question of his hon. Friend, but he would rather avoid discussing the matters of fact that had been suggested. It was the case that the proposition of the Verderer's Court was submitted by the Office of Woods and Forests, in 1853, to the then Attorney General, who was now the Lord Chief Justice of England, and he did not think it proper to institute proceedings on the part of the Crown. But the Government having undertaken, in accordance with the wishes of the House, to deal with the matter, they were very anxious to proceed with it, if possible, by amicable means. Under these circumstances he would rather not enter into any discussion of points of detail at that moment.