be remedied by defining, in fome degree, the number of hours which ought actually and bona fide to be devoted to each meeting, and requiring that it fhould not be occupied by attention to any other bufinefs; and alfo by regulating, according to the place of refidence of each commiffioner, the charges to be allowed for travelling expenfes. With a view to afcertain how far the former of thefe regulations had been complied with, it might be defirable that the clerk fhould be required to keep a register of all the days and times employed in the bufinefs of the enclofure; which, as well as the books of account, fhould be open to the infpection of all perfons concerned.

On a full confideration of the fubject of parliamentary fees, properly fo called, which has occupied much of the attention of your committee, they fee no ground to recommend to the houfe any general regulations on that head. As a fuitable recompence for the time, attention, and abilities of the feveral perfons to whom they are payable, they find no reafon to object to their ufual amount: and from a comparifon of it to that of the other expenfes neceflarily incidental to this procedure, they are not inclined to think it can in general operate as a difcouragement to this mode of improvement. In particular inftances, however, which are not unfrequent, of fmall waftes and commons, it is obvious that the whole expenfe of conducting an enclofure, under the authority of parliament, muft always bear to large a proportion to the value of the land to be divided, as-to preclude the poffibility of improvement in that mode. It feems

to your committee worthy the confideration of the houfe, how far it might be advifable, in certain cafes of fuch a defcription, to be ascertained either by the number of acres, or value of the land (in addition to the general regulations above fuggelted), to remove fuch part of the impediment as is more immediately under its control, by providing that fuch bills fhould only be confidered, in the payment of fees, as fingle bills, and be entitled to any other indulgence which parliament in its wifdom fhould fee fit. Your committee ground this recommendation on the fuppofition that fuch portions of land could by no poffibility · be brought into cultivation in the ordinary mode, and that therefore the reduction propofed is not fo much to be confidered as a diminution of probable and accustomed perquifites to the officers of the two houles, as the means of making that productive of emolument to a certain amount which would otherwife never be at all available to that effect.

On the whole, your committee have thought they fhould beft fulfil the intentions of the house in referring to them to confider of the most effectual means of facilitating, under the authority of parliament, the enclosure and improvement of the wafe and other unproductive lands of the kingdom, by confining the regulations they might fuggeft to fuch points as appeared to them fimple and of eafy attainment; by which the expenfe attending enclofare, under the prefent fyftem, would be confiderably diminished, and the plan would in other refpects be improved. And if the fuggef tions they have ventured to recom

mend

Table of Fees payable in the Two Houfes, on Bills of Enclofure.

Bill fees

-Yeoman ufher and door-keepers Order of committee

Committee fees

Account of Fees received in the House of Commons on Bills of Enclosure, for Fourteen Years, ending 1799.

Report of the Committee of the House of Commons respecting Bread, Corn, &c. &c.

The committee appointed to confider of means for rendering more effectual the provifions of an act, made in the thirteenth year of the reign of his prefent Majefty, intituled, " An Act for better regulating the Affize and making of Bread;" and who were inftructed to confider of the most effectual means of remedying any inconveniences which may arife from the deficiency of the laft crop of grain; and empowered to report their proceedings, from time to time, to the houfe: Have proceeded, in pursuance of the orders of the house, to confider of the provifions of the faid act; and are decidedly of opinion, that the act in its prefent ftate is completely ineffectual for the purpofes for which it was intended; that the regulations contained in it are in

many respects defective; and that the execution of it would be totally incompatible with the prefent mode of fetting the affize of bread by law, and would anfwer no object, unless, at the time when bakers are prohibited from making, according to the demand of their customers, different kinds of bread, millers fhould be prohibited from manufacturing different forts of flour.

Your committee proceeded next to confider, how far it might be proper to recommend to the house to adopt fuch farther regulations and reftrictions; and as they underftood a prejudice exifted in fome parts of the country against any coarfer fort of bread than that which is at prefent known by the name of the Fine Household Bread," on the ground that the former was lefs wholefome and nutritious than the latter, they thought it important to obtain the opinions of fome eminent and refpectable phyficians on