458 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



though it is undoubtedly true that the system has been tacitly ad- 

 mitted. It is, I think, very characteristic of English methods of 

 government, which are extremely illogical, and extraordinarily effec- 

 tive, that a concession which was simply intended lo give free 

 scope to an engineer should have developed in this way. One 

 curious result, however, of recoupment is that it appears in the great 

 majority of instances in England to result in loss to the public body 

 venturing on it. The general effect of the evidence on the subject 

 given before the House of Lords Committee in 1894 tended to shew 

 that local improvements did not have nearly sO' much effect in im- 

 proving neighbouring properties as their sanguine ])romoters were 

 generally inclined to imagine. This fact, I may remark parentheti- 

 cally, seems to confirm the idea at which I had arrived that better- 

 ment, though theoretically a perfectly fair system, would tend in 

 practice to produce gross injustice; since judging from the fairly 

 general experience of recoupment in England, it might \er) well hap- 

 pen that a man would find himself saddled with a betterment charge 

 at the same time that his proiperty had deteriorated in value. 



The view I would put forward as a commendable one in regard to 

 recoupment is that as long as property could be turned to anv conceiv- 

 able use in carrying out aii improvement, or if it were bound up, as it 

 were, in propert}' which would need to be dealt with, there would be 

 no very great practical injustice in having compulsor)- expropria- 

 tion of it; that is, of course:, assuming that a fair price were paid 

 to the owner. It might fairly be said that it was as much a public 

 object for the public to take precautions that the cost of a public 

 service should not be prohibitive, and that, therefore, the\ were en- 

 titled to take property which would reduce that cost, and which was 

 clearly involved, as it were, in the improvement. In this case also 

 it should be pointed out that the individual would not be seriously 

 damaged, though he would not be allowed to profit undul) from an 

 enterprise to which he had not specially contributed. But when it 

 comes tO' the question of how far you Avill extend this principle:, I am 

 free to confess that I have nO' more exact answer tO' give than that 

 commonsense must be used. If you cany the principle too far of 

 allowing the public body to expropriate property solely, as one might 

 put it, with a speculative object, a, dangerous sense of insecurity 

 would immediately be created in property owners; and in all proba- 

 bility, tho'Ugh this is not exactly tO' the point in the discussion, the 

 public body would find that it had embarked in a ver) hazardous 

 enterprise by dealing in land. Municipalities and public bodies 

 generally cannot be said to be very expert as a rule in the trade of 

 money-making. 



The conclusion tO' which I have arrived, after indicating. I fear, 

 in a very halting and tentative manner the grounds by which I arrive 

 at it, is that the betterment charge on people who profit from an 

 undertaking more directly than the rest of the community is theoreti- 

 cally perfect. If it can be levied fairly, no conceivable objection 

 could be brought against it, but the actual difficulties in the way of 

 it seem to me so great that I regard this method as impracticable. 



