Mr. Ritchie gave the most carefully considered and temperate answer,
maintaining that, as regarded expro- priation, the Municipalities had powers enough now, and could exercise them easily, 2,130 permissions to expropriate having been granted by the Local Government Board up to 1890, against which there were only 105 appeals. He could not give the local authorities such a "roving commission" to speculate. As to the unearned increment, he could see no. distinction between increased income from land due to- increase of population, and increased income from a shop due to the same cause. He believed also that the special proposal, which was, as it were, to hang up property under a threat of expropriation valid for twenty years, would paralyse dealing in land, and prevent the owners benefiting, say, by a new railway, which would be an admitted injustice. Mr. Ritchie also showed that the obligation to sell ought to imply an obligation to buy, and with much courage argued that it might often happen that the "interest of a locality," which was alone considered in the Bill, might be opposed to common justice. The second reading was refused by 223 to 148.
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