Suggestions for Legislation.
What then should be the aim of those who desire at once to make effective, and to strengthen, that public opinion, which demands with growing force the preservation of the places of interest and beauty with which this country abounds?
The ultimate aim should, I conceive, be to secure legislation which will give public authorities and other appropriate agencies the power of preventing the destruction or spoliation of such places. The principle embodied in the first Ancient Monuments Bill, and in the legislation of France should be accepted by the State. The owner, whether a public body or a private person, of a notable monument, or of a place of surpassing natural beauty, should be required to submit—in the case of a private person on compensation, and perhaps with the alternative of expropriation—to a restriction on any act of ownership which will injure the place. Take an instance. Stonehenge is the most noted pre-historic monument in the United Kingdom. It lay open to inspection by the public from time immemorial until some five or six years ago. Nevertheless, it stands on private property, and recently the owner has thought it well to inclose the monument with a barbed-wire fence, to erect a toll-house, and to charge for the right to enter. Litigation ensued. Those who saw in this assertion of ownership a claim which would equally entitle the proprietor to cart away every stone in the place, resorting to that indirect method of defence which has often been successful in English law (and after endeavouring to come to terms of purchase) alleged that a certain public highway had been obstructed by the enclosure. This attempt failed, and the expenses of the parties
