The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [357]
‘I refer, of course,’ Albion went on, ‘to Mr Cumberbatch’s famous letter.’
Famous. Infamous. It was perhaps unfair that this document – a private letter to his superiors pointing out the most advantageous position for them to take – should have been made public. But in 1854 it had been published in a report on the Forest and everyone had read it. The point that the young Deputy Surveyor made was clever and brutal. Since there was a good chance the Forest would end by being partitioned, he argued, the Office of Woods should make all its inclosures as fast as possible, on the best land. With that land, for all practical purposes, withdrawn from the equation, the commoners’ future share was bound to be worth far less.
‘Nothing in the last twenty years has caused such bad feeling,’ Albion pointed out. ‘The commoners have been told, without a doubt, that it is the intention of the Crown to destroy them. That, Your Lordships, is the politics of the Forest now.’
Did they care? It was hard to know.
‘I come now to the material threat.’ He looked at them severely. ‘Your Lordships must understand the underlying problem. Trees grow best on the richest land and that’s where the best grazing is, too. So the tree-growers and the commoning farmers both want the same pieces of the Forest. Secondly, it is often supposed that once you inclose land for trees and let them grow to a certain height you can open the inclosure for grazing again. That’s not true. With today’s planting methods the trees are grown so close together that little ground cover grows underneath them. The new inclosures are lost to grazing for generations. Inevitably, therefore, the tree-grower seeks to deprive the farmer of his best land, for an indefinite period.’
‘You say “seek to deprive”, Colonel. Doesn’t that presume the Office of Woods to be aggressive in its claims?’
‘It is not presumption. I have absolute material proof that it is highly aggressive. That is my point. First, they have frequently said they will enclose their allotted acres, reopen the inclosures later – which I have just explained won’t work – and then enclose the same amount all over again. I don’t think the Act allows this, but if so, they will plainly end by taking most of the Forest.
‘More immediately, however, they have done something rather clever. They have said that there were still authorities to make inclosures, deriving from the ancient legislation of 1698, which had never been exercised. So they added those to the ten thousand acres allowed under the Act and came up with several thousand more.’ He gave their lordships a wry look.
‘Your lordships, it may be legal. But let me show you the deviousness of the thing. You will recall that under the Deer Removal Act it was agreed that no inclosure should be less than three hundred acres. That was precisely to stop the Office of Woods picking off little pieces of the best land all over the Forest. But by saying they were taking up their unused quota from the earlier legislation, they neatly evaded Parliament’s intention. Here is a list of the inclosures. I invite you to look at them.’
He had done his work thoroughly. The list showed exactly what he said: a few score acres here, a hundred there, two hundred somewhere else – all on the best land.
‘Nor is that all,’ the Colonel went on. ‘We now come to the inclosures made under the Act. About four of the ten thousand acres have been taken up so far. Each individual inclosure must be a minimum of three hundred acres, you will remember. Did they obey the Act? Of course they did. And let me show you how. I have made some maps. It’s something we old soldiers learn to do,’ he added drily. ‘Perhaps you would kindly consider them?’
As they looked at his maps even some of their lordships could not repress a smile. The new inclosures might