COMPULSORY SALE OF LAND 233 



Councils in all cases paid a good deal more for the land 

 they purchased than the prices for which landowners are 

 perfectly willing to sell it to private buyers ; and as the 

 Imperial Government would, in every case, be guided 

 by market prices, we fail to see where the injustice 

 comes in. 



If the injustice consists in the compulsory nature of the 

 business, then, while we can readily understand and 

 appreciate such a feeling, we could not altogether con- 

 demn it for such a reason, because we could point to an 

 equal measure of injustice in a good many other matters 

 pertaining to the administration of the affairs of the 

 commonwealth, which are actually acquiesced in and 

 agreed to by that very class which would condemn this 

 occupying ownership scheme. The income-tax, poor- 

 rates, death-duties, and other items of a kindred nature 

 in the domestic life of the nation are all compulsory, but 

 that fact alone is insufficient to condemn them on the 

 score of injustice. None of us like these compulsory 

 attentions on the part of Government, but as loyal sub- 

 jects we recognise the necessity for their existence, and 

 we submit to them. 



Let us adopt precisely the same course in respect to 

 new land tenures, always bearing in mind this important 

 difference, that, whereas in one case our millions are, as 

 we have seen, spent in vain in many directions, in this 

 case, those who are asked to give up something would 

 receive in return full market value for that which they part 

 with. 



Then, again, there is the pressing necessity for remov- 

 ing this question of cultivating our soil to the best pos- 



