of shops, offices, &c., should be so many storeys high, the object, of
course, being to make the properties, which would in due course revert
to the city, the more valuable. When, however, these tall buildings were
erected, adjacent premises were robbed of light and air, and when the
owners or tenants of these injured premises asked for compensation they
found out, at least in some cases, that the authorities were not liable.
I believe I am right in saying that the powers conferred by the Act
absolved them from indictments on the part of those whose property was
damaged by diminished air or light. The result was that certain
sufferers found to their mortification that they had no redress, but
must raise their chimneys at their own cost, if necessary, and in other
cases endure the inconvenience of a decreased supply of light. This was
an unpleasant revelation that caused much gnashing of teeth among the
owners of, and the dwellers in, the properties surrounding the tall
buildings erected by the leaseholders of the Corporation.

As for those whose property was required and taken under the Act, it was
all very well for owners and for those who had leases: they could not be
molested without fair and proper payment. Shopkeepers and others,
however, who were only annual tenants, had, I fear in many cases, to go
empty away. Some of these had good, old-established businesses that had
for years become identified with certain premises. It was nothing short
of ruin to them to move, but they had to take up their goods and walk.
This is the way that authorities often have to deal with the more or
less helpless in view of what they consider to be the greatest good of
the greatest number.

It will, of course, be said that some of these traders were extremely
short-sighted not to have had leases of premises that were so
all-important to them. In many cases, however, they were unable to