My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

82 MY LIFEbe well for a moment to set these entirely on oneside, and consider what would have been the proper,the equitable, and the most beneficial mode of dealingwith our common and waste lands at the time of thelast general Inclosure Act in the early years of thereign of Queen Victoria. Considering, then, thatthese uninclosed wastes were the last remnant of ourcountry's land over which we, the public, had anyopportunity of free passage to breathe pure air andenjoy the beauties of nature ; considering that thesewastes, although almost worthless agriculturally, wereof especial value to the poor of the parishes or manorsin which they were situated, not only giving thempasture for their few domestic animals, but in somecases peat for fuel and loppings of trees for fences orgarden sticks ;considering that an acre or two ofsuch land, when inclosed and cultivated, would givethem, in return for the labour of themselves and theirfamilies during spare hours, a considerable portionof their subsistence, would enable them to create ahome from which they could not be ejected by thewill of any landlord or employer, and would thusraise them at once to a condition of comparativeindependence and security, abolishing the terriblespectre of the workhouse for their old age, which nowhaunts the peasant or labourer throughout life, andis the fundamental cause of that exodus to the townsabout which so much nonsense is talked ;considering,further, that just in proportion as men rise in thesocial scale, these various uses of the waste landsbecome less and less vitally important, till, when wearrive at the country squire and great landowner, theonly use of the inclosed common or moor is either togame, or to add tobe used as a breeding-ground forsome of his farms a few acres of land at an almost