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319. Yes? Personally, I object to this Order, first for the mode it has been carried out. I attended a meeting in September, 1923, at Callow End, and Mr. Dobson fully explained this order. It was a very orderly meeting, there was no heckling or anything; in fact he complimented us after the meeting on such an orderly meeting, and naturally we thought we were dealing with a gentleman of his word. At that meeting a man got up and moved an Amendment against the Provisional Order. Mr. Dobson got up and said, Well, I would much rather for this meeting to go up without any objection, and he asked this man not to put the amendment; he asked the gentleman if he would withdraw his amendment. He withdrew the amendment on conditions that at the next meeting any objections would be heard. Well, it went on for some time, and down came this Provisional Order. It was put up in the parish. I am a member of the Parish Council, and when this came out we discussed it, and moved a resolution against this Provisional Order, because I could see a lot of loopholes, and my opinion is this: we know what we have got to-day-we have got the Old Hills; we know what we have got, but once we get this Provisional Order-I have read it, and reading it I see 60 many loopholes-I can see my rights going away, rights that I have paid for; that is what I look at. I have sons following me on. I do not want them to say in a few years' time, when the rights have gone, "If it was not for my father: why did not he go and stick up for the rights of these commons "--because we have seen thousands of acres in the country go; and I can tell you another thing, gentlemen, I maintain the commons are a good thing, because myself I am speaking, as I know; I had to work very cheaply

320. Please, would you mind giving us your objections to this particular Order? -It is this: I have had to work, and I find the commons very useful and helpful to put a man on his legs, if he is thrifty. Half my life I have had to work 16 hours a day to get on my feet, before I could get a footing with other people.

321. How does this Order deprive you of any rights; that is what we really

[Continued.

want to get at? We are quite sympathetic if you will tell us how it is going to affect you?-As I see, reading this Order--it says in the Order that is notified in the papers, that it did not mean to trouble with the commoners' rights at present.

Mr. Forestier-Walker.

322. Have you any objection to a Board of Conservators being set up?-I am in favour of a regulation for the commons, the same as we do with the other common land in Powick; that is, by a local body.

323. Have you any objection to Worcester having a representative and Great Malvern having a representative?— I think I have.

324. You would rather they did not?I would rather they did not; we work with them, and the people from Worcester and Malvern may come there.

325. Have you any objection to Lord Beauchamp having two representatives?Certainly not; he should be represented.

326. You want to have Lord Beauchamp having representation, and the Parish Council and the commoners; that is the only thing you desire?-Yes, that everybody should be fully represented and fairly represented.

327. Everybody except Worcester and Malvern? Except Worcester and

Malvern.

328. You agree, do not you, that a large number of people come from Worcester and the big towns?-Yes.

329. You do not think it would be fair to give them an opportunity of having representatives? They have got their Pitchcroft and Parks and they bar us from any management of that. I think there are intelligent men enough in our parish to manage the Old Hills without applying to Worcester or Malvern.

330. Then your objection is not so much to the Board being set up but to Malvern and Worcester being included in the representation?—Yes.

331. Boiled down, that is what you object to?-Yes, but I object to this Provisional Order under this Act.

(The Witness withdrew.)

16 July, 1924.]

Mr. OBED WALTON.

[Continued.

OBED WALTON, called in; and examined.

Chairman.

322. You live at Callow End, Worcester, and are a bootmaker?-Yes.

333. Do you hold any land?-No, I only own a cottage and garden and a small allotment.

334. How much?-A quarter of an acre. 335. How long have you held the allotment?-About 16 years.

336. Do you exercise any right of common?-I have never exercised any right of common, although I claim I have a right, and further I wish to do so in common with the rest of the parish.

337. Do you claim the right of common in respect of the cottage or the allotment? In respect of the cottage I purchased from Lord Beauchamp.

33. The cottage alone?--Yes. 339. Apart from the land?-Yes. 340. Is that the generally accepted view? That is the generally accepted view of the parishioners, that they all have a right to turn stock on those Old Hills if they think proper. It is a right which has been exercised the whole 20 years I have lived in the parish. The first person I saw on the Old Hills exercising rights was a woman and her daughter in 1901; in October they were attending about a dozen sheep, and those people rented a cottage with about 20 poles of garden to it; that is all they had, and they wintered their stock on the common; and there was an old man lived up the lane who had a donkey. He turned him on to the Old Hills; he had no ground except his garden; and other people living in other parts of the parish with no ground at all, bar just a small scrap of back yard, have exercised a right to turn sheep on there consistently ever since I have been in the village. I object to this Order on this ground, that they have applied for an Order simply and purely to deprive us people of our rights of common on those Old Hills. The thing has been done in a shabby manner from the start; they obtained a lot of signatures from their own tenants and workpeople, and made the application behind the backs of the parishioners; had they had meetings, if it had been open, straight and above board, to deal straight and fair with the parishioners, if we had had a meeting of the parishioners and put the matter before them before they ever made any application; when Earl Beauchamp addressed the meeting of pro

test from the different people, he brought out the hint there that these people only who had land would have a right there.

341. It was hinted, you say?—Yes, Earl Beauchamp hinted such a thing, and I told them then that I had been in the parish for over 20 years, and I had known people living in any cottage scattered all over the district exercise the right of turning sheep on those Old Hills.

342. Has there been any interference with the rights of the cottagers?-I have never known anyone to be interfered with; I have known single men to keep sheep on there. I have pointed out to old commoners who spoke to me about it that there had never been any objection, and they had no right to interfere; these common rights had stood, no doubt, for hundreds of years without interference by anyone; and it will be a great and serious harm to these cottagers if this right is taken from them, as no doubt it will be if this Order is made in this particular form.

Lord Apsley.

343. What particular form do you think this Order will take?-It will stop people, who want to keep a sheep or two, from doing so on these Old Hills; and I say these men have a right to turn them on tc this common; there is plenty of stuff, so that they can run a few sheep an winter them there on the Old Hills quite well, and quite safely, from their own produce.

344. Do you object to Worcester and Malvern being represented? I have not studied that much. That would not make much difference, because I do not think they are interested in the matter at all.

Mr. Gibbins.

345. Even the cottagers were not interfered with by the Hayward?-No; I have never heard of any instance of it.

346. Were there no regulations to prevent new people coming in and claiming the right?-No; they should not be provented; there are very few people want to use it, and if anyone wants to use it why should not they be allowed to use it; it has always been the right of the parishioner, why should it be altered now?

347. Have you any objection to Conservators at all, because that would be the controlling body?-Yes, I strongly

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Chairman.

350. You live at Callow End, near Worcester?-Yes.

351. You are an engineer?-Yes. 352. I understand you have been appointed to come here by the Parish Meeting? Yes.

353. Would you mind telling us what your objections are. First of all, do you hold any land? I am a freeholder; I hold property.

354. How much land?-A cottage and a garden attached.

355. How much land? It is about 86 ft. by 90; it is not very much.

356. You do not hold any land otherwise?-I rent land.

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358. Do you exercise rights of common? -That is the question which I have been listening to very attentively to try and get to know how you determine.

359. Have you got any animals on the common?-No.

360. You have not?-No.

361. Do you think you have the right to put them on if you wish? I should, up to now.

362. In respect of what: the land or the cottage? In respect of the cottage. The cottage that I own carries 2 beast grazes; I have a right to turn on the common, and if I did not rent any ground I should still maintain that I had the right to turn out on Old Hills.

363. On what ground do you claim you have the right to put a certain number of beasts on the common?-Because I am a freeholder.

364. Is there anything in your conveyance which gives you that right: in

the deed which conveys the property to you ?-No.

365. You do not think there is?-No. 366. It is not mentioned in the conveyance?-No.

367. But you claim that with the conveyance of the house to you there passes. at the same time that right of commonable pasture?—Yes; it is not a matter of the conveyance. The Commons Committee, I understand, have power over the beast grazes and although I have not exercised the beast grazes myself, I get paid for them every year, and you can sell these beast grazes.

368. You have a Commons Committee? -Yes, in Powick Parish.

369. Of the Parish Council?-For the Parish.

370. What rights do they exercise, and how do they exercise them, over the common? If I did not hold beast grazes and I wanted to turn out on the common when it was not time for me to turn out on that common they would soon order my stuff off, or put it in the road.

Mr. Hastie.] May I say that the witness has gone away from this common altogether; he is talking of some common land which does not come into this scheme at all.

Mr. Rowcliffe.] It is quite probably the common fields on the Croome Estate.

Chairman.

371. He did refer to common fields; I am rather dealing with commons. (To the Witness.) Do you claim the right to put any animals on this particular common, not the common fields?-Yes, I claim the right.

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372. On what do you base that?Because of the cottage of which I am freeholder.

373. Do all the other cottagers claim the same right? Yes. When Lord Beauchamp held the property which I hold now he was quite willing to let me turn anything on the Old Hills, when I was tenant, so I maintain that now I occupy the house I have a right still.

374. Let us be quite clear on the point; you were tenant of the house before you bought it? Yes.

375. When you were tenant, did you turn any animals on the common?-No.

376. But you could have done?-My wife's father did.

377. As tenant?-He was tenant there; he has had as many as a dozen sheep up there, and he never owned as much ground as there is in this room.

378. Did he hold any ground at the time?-No.

379. As cottager he put the sheep on the common?-Quite right.

380. That is your claim, as cottager?Yes. The other objection I have was: Mr. Dobson held the Board of Inquiry at the Callow End School, and I asked Mr. Dobson in the event of their not getting two-thirds of the signatures of the commoners of Powick what would happen to this grant, and he said that it would fall through. I maintain that they have not got two-thirds of the signatures.

Mr. Forestier-Walker.

381. Have you seen the signatures?No. There are 399 householders in the parish of Powick and you cannot have 200 on one sheet and 100 on another, can you?

382. That is a matter of argument, is not it?

Sir H. Buckingham.

383. Your objection is purely technical then?-Yes.

Chairman.

384. Have you any practical objection. What is your practical objection against the Order being put in force?-I moved an amendment at the meeting when Mr. Dobson was holding the Inquiry, and he asked me to withdraw my amendment on the ground that that Inquiry was only a feeler, to take the feeling of the ratepayers, and that a further meeting would

[Continued.

be held where we could voice our views personally, and a vote would be taken on the question of the two-thirds of the parishioners wishing this grant against the others, and we have never had that meeting.

385. That you might describe again as a technical objection. Now you have seen the proposed Order in print, what is your practical objection to any terms of the Order; that is what the Committee wants to know. What practical objection have you got to the common being placed under the control of these Conservators, and so on? I think I shall be deprived of my rights as a cottager, and that as a cottager I shall not have any right to turn anything on the Old Hills. If I were to give up my ground to-morrow and have some sheep left on my hands, if this grant goes through, and they determine I am not a commoner because I do not own a certain amount of ground, I shall have to get rid of my sheep and be left in the cart; I maintain that as a cottager I should hold the right to put sheep on the Old Hills.

Mr. Forestier-Walker.

386. These are your two points, are not they, that if this second meeting had been held the whole thing would have been defeated? No, I say there should have been given a chance to the parishioners of giving voice to their opinions and raise objections.

387. In your mind if they had held another meeting this suggestion would have been defeated?-Probably.

388. That is what you have in your mind? Yes.

389. The other point is the danger of the loss to the freeholders or the cottage holders?-Yes.

Mr. Gibbins.

390. Do I take it that all the parishioners were invited to this meeting or knew about the meeting?-All the parishioners.

391. That all the parishioners were notified?-The inquiry do you mean? 392. Yes?-Yes.

Mr. Hastie.] May I put a question to the witness?

Chairman.] You may put it through

me.

Mr. Hastie.] I only wanted to ask him whether he did not sign the Provisional Order himself.

16 July, 1924.]

SELECT COMMITTEE ON COMMONS.

Mr. J. W. HARBER.

[Continued.

Chairman.

393. The question Mr. Hastie wishes me to put to you is: did you sign the Provisional Order yourself?-Yes, I did, but under these circumstances: Mr. Slater himself brought the paper down for me to sign, and I asked him what I was signing. He did not open the paper, and I did not see it, and he said that it was the Order which was made out; I was elected on the Committee when Earl Beauchamp sat, and it was proposed to draw up schemes for the regulation of the Old Hills, and I understood that that paper that I signed was for those regulations that we drafted up to go through, for the Provisional Order to be made out; I did not know

that the Provisional Order was made out then, at that time.

Mr. Forestier-Walker

394. That will be a lesson to you in. future to read what you sign?-Quite so. Chairman.] I have only to thank you gentlemen for your presence and the assistance you have given us.

(The Committee conferred.)

Chairman.] I am able to announce our decision now. We have unanimously decided that the Provisional Order ought not to be confirmed. If there is any further application it will have to be a new one.

(48728-22) Wt. 8664 1000 8/21 H St. Gp 71

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