The compulsory acquisition of laud for the State or any
local or public Authority will be facilitated by Mr. Fisher's important new Bill. The ruling.principles of it are that an official valuer will act as arbitrator in any dispute over the price to be paid, and that the value of land is " taken to be the amount which the land if sold in the open market by a willing seller might be expected to realize." No allowance is to be made for the compulsion to sell. Nor is the landowner to gain from " the special suitability" of the land for any purpose to which it could only be applied under an Act of Parliament, or "for which there is no market apart from the special needs of a particular purchaser." The alum-owner is not to benefit by the excessive rental value of his slum. If this Bill diminishes the delays and the heavy law costs incidental to most com- pulsory purchases of land, it will be of the greatest value to the nation.
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