Recoupment and Betterment. 459 



I think that a very striking proof of this impracticability from the 

 point of view of justice is furnished by the fact that the House of 

 Lords Committee, which reported in favour of a betterment rate in 

 a modified form, added that, if the owner was of opinion after the 

 betterment rate had been fixed that it was an unfair one, he should 

 be entitled to call upon the public body concerned to buy the pro- 

 pert\- at its actual market value. This, however, it is clear, is only 

 an indirect way of coming round to recoupment. 



Recoupment, as I have tried to indicate, is not ver\- defensible 

 from a theoretical point of view, but as a working proposition within 

 the limits I have laid down, it seems certainly not to be unfair on 

 the individual. Moreover, in South Africa, where the property 

 market is less conservative than in England, and where an improve- 

 ment or other alteration in value has a more immediate effect, the 

 result would not be .so disappointing to public bodies as it appears 

 verv often to have been in England. 



G(i 2 



