Clause 2. — (Rules for the Assessment of Compensation.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 25 June 1919.

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Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON:

The Attorney-General, in speaking on the Amendment, spoke of the danger of interfering with the market value. That is no doubt an excellent theory, but when you remember that the Government has spent the greater part of its time in the last four or five years in interfering with every other kind of market value, one rather wonders why the land in itself should be exempt from this special war treatment. We are told that we do not wish anyone to make a profit out of the necessities of the War. Unfortunately we have not had much success in achieving that desirable end, but because we cannot get perfection, that is surely no reason why we should not get as large a measure as possible, and in the same way as the Government have fixed by the control of prices that which a shopkeeper may sell, and further than that has fixed the amount of market value which the cottage landlord may get for his property, if it is right for the Government to fix what one class of landlord may receive in return for his property, surely it is equally right that they may deal with the larger landlords and the larger question on the same lines. You may say possibly that you have only fixed the rent which may be taken for a cottage, but you have also fixed and limited its selling value, because while you have given possession to the sitting tenant, by restricting the rent you have also restricted the selling price. Where the Government have thought it right to interfere in the one case, it is surely a poor defence to say we must not interfere with the market value of land. We have heard of the speculator and the land shark in regard to agricultural land and how that land is being forced up in value and the present tenants are being compelled to pay enhanced rents, and all that is a most undesirable practice, which no one would defend, but if we reject every possibility of coping with it, it is no good expressing pious opinions and giving lip service to general principles if you refuse to carry them out in practice. I hope the Government will further consider this measure. I submit that the proposers would willingly Take the risks of the few cases where they might lose by this proposal if there was a certainty that in the great majority of cases land would be acquired for the municipalities and others who require the land on the average at an infinitely less price than under the Bill as it stands.