View report page

11
I think, therefore, that this Judgment of the Justices in Sessions
must be supported, and that the appeal must be dismissed.
Lord Justice Bowen:—I am perfectly satisfied that the real and
the only question intended to be raised in this case is whether the
School Board are to be excluded, when you are calculating the rateable
value of the premises, from the class of hypothetical tenant. What does
excluding the School Board from the class of hypothetical tenant
mean? In order to see what it means you must go back to the Act of
Parliament, and as soon as you go back to the Act of Parliament
the question ceases to be shrouded in that atmosphere of mystery which
is always introduced when you depart from the language of the Act of
Parliament and apply yourself to the idea of hypothetical tenant which
is not mentioned in the Act. Both the general Statute of William,
and the Act of Parliament under which this present case arises, direct
that you are to arrive at the rateable value of premises by estimating
the rent at which the premises might reasonably be expected to be let
from year to year. What does "reasonably expected to let" mean?
That must mean reasonably expected to let to somebody who wants to
hire. The question we are asked to decide is whether you are to
exclude from the field of possible occupiers a School Board. On
looking again at the Statute one asks oneself, if you are to estimate the
rent at what the premises might reasonably be expected to let from
year to year for, whether you might reasonably expect, amongst other
things, to let it to a School Board. A School Board is actually one of
the persons who would want to take it, and how would it be possible to
exclude from the field of possible occupiers the one competitor that
really wants the premises, and for whose occupation it is perfectly and
admirably suited. Assume, therefore, as you state the case in the
language of the Act of Parliament, it answers itself and it is as plain as
daylight that you cannot exclude it. It would be too ridiculous to
suppose that you are to decide first of all upon a hypothesis that
the one perso'n who wants the premises is never to be the person who
uses them, and secondly that the real value to him of the premises is to
be the one value that you are never to take into consideration. On
what ground can it be suggested that this strange exclusion is to be
made? Because it is said that the School Board can make no profit out
of the premises. What on earth does it matter whether the School
Board want these premises for the purpose of profit, or whether, when
they have got them, they will make a profit out of them, provided it is
certain they want them and will pay for them, and as soon as you are
certain that they want them you know that they will pay for them.
The criterion of whether premises are valuable is whether or no the
occupier can find anybody who wants to take them from him; and if a
man had got a barren rock which he could let for £100 a year, the