JAMES AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUGDMENT 19 43. The applicants submitted that the use in the same context of different phrases - "public interest" in the first paragraph of Article 1 (P1-1) and "general interest" in the second paragraph - should, according to a generally recognised principle of treaty interpretation, be assumed to indicate an intention to refer to different concepts. They construed Article 1 (P1-1) as granting the State more latitude to control the use of someone’s property than to take it away from him. In the Court’s opinion, even if there could be differences between the concepts of "public interest" and "general interest" in Article 1 (P1-1), on the point under consideration no fundamental distinction of the kind contended for by the applicants can be drawn between them. 44. The applicants accepted that measures designed to ensure equitable distribution of economic advantages, for example by way of taxation, are licensed by Article 1 (P1-1), but, so they argued, solely by the second paragraph and not by the first paragraph. The Court, however, sees no cogent reason why a State should be prohibited under Article 1 (P1-1) from implementing such a policy by resort to deprivation of property. 45. For these reasons, the Court comes to the same conclusion as the Commission: a taking of property effected in pursuance of legitimate social, economic or other policies may be "in the public interest", even if the community at large has no direct use or enjoyment of the property taken. The leasehold reform legislation is not therefore ipso facto an infringement of Article 1 (P1-1) on this ground. Accordingly, it is necessary to inquire whether in other respects the legislation satisfied the "public interest" test and the remaining requirements laid down in the second sentence of Article 1 (P1-1). 3. Whether the leasehold reform legislation complied with the "public interest" test and the remaining requirements of the deprivation rule (a) Margin of appreciation 46. Because of their direct knowledge of their society and its needs, the national authorities are in principle better placed than the international judge to appreciate what is "in the public interest". Under the system of protection established by the Convention, it is thus for the national authorities to make the initial assessment both of the existence of a problem of public concern warranting measures of deprivation of property and of the remedial action to be taken (see, mutatis mutandis, the Handyside judgment of 7 December 1976, Series A no. 24, p. 22, para. 48). Here, as in other fields to which the safeguards of the Convention extend, the national authorities accordingly enjoy a certain margin of appreciation. Furthermore, the notion of "public interest" is necessarily extensive. In particular, as the Commission noted, the decision to enact laws expropriating property will commonly involve consideration of political,