JAMES AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUGDMENT 23 mutatis mutandis, the Klass and Others judgment of 6 September 1978, Series A no. 28, p. 23, para. 49). The occupying leaseholder was considered by Parliament to have a "moral entitlement" to ownership of the house, of which inadequate account was taken under the existing law (see the extracts from the 1966 White Paper quoted above at paragraph 18). The concern of the legislature was not simply to regulate more fairly the relationship of landlord and tenant but to right a perceived injustice that went to the very issue of ownership. Allowing a mechanism for the compulsory transfer of the freehold interest in the house and the land to the tenant, with financial compensation to the landlord, cannot in itself be qualified in the circumstances as an inappropriate or disproportionate method for readjusting the law so as to meet that concern. (ii) Rateable-value limits 52. As to the conditions laid down for enfranchisement, the applicants contended that the restriction of the scope of the legislation to houses below a certain rateable value (see paragraph 21 (b) above) introduces an arbitrary element and is inconsistent with the philosophy on which the legislation was based, since the same moral entitlement would arise for the tenant whatever the value of the property. The Court notes that, on the Government’s undisputed estimate, all but one or two per cent of dwellinghouses held on long leases in England and Wales were within the 1967 Act (see paragraph 19 above). The explanations given on behalf of the Government during the debates on the Bill for inserting the rateable-value limits (ibid.) cannot be dismissed as irrational. In particular, although the argument of "moral entitlement" was logically capable of being applied across the board, Parliament cannot be said to have acted unreasonably in restricting, as a matter of judgment, the right of enfranchisement under the 1967 Act to less valuable houses so as to redress what were perceived to be the cases of greatest hardship. Neither can the Court find that the amendment in the 1974 Act, whereby a more valuable class of property was rendered liable to enfranchisement (see paragraphs 19 in fine and 21 (b) above), fell outside the State’s margin of appreciation. (iii) Compensation 53. The applicants also objected to the compensation terms under the legislation. (a’) Entitlement 54. The first question that arises is whether the availability and amount of compensation are material considerations under the second sentence of the first paragraph of Article 1 (P1-1), the text of the provision being silent on the point. The Commission, with whom both the Government and the