§ SIR JOHN SIMEONsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether, looking to the doubts that exist as to parishes, any part of which may be under the Local Government Act (1858), being able to avail themselves either of the Utilization of Sewage Act (1865) or of the Sanitary Act (1866), the Government is prepared to amend the Law so as to enable parishes so circumstanced to bring themselves under the operation of those Acts?
§ LORD ROBERT MONTAGUsaid, in reply that the object of the Sewage Utilization Act was to extend the powers and benefits of the Local Government Act to rural parishes. The reason why a parish, any part of which may be under the Local Government Act, is unable to avail itself of the Sewage Utilization Act, or of the first part of the Sanitary Act of 1866, was 909 the difficulty of avoiding contemporaneous jurisdictions and two systems of rating over the same area. Taking the case of Enfield, for example, That town was situated in a large agricultural parish, twenty miles in diameter. Farmers twenty miles off objected to be rated for the sewerage of that town. Enfield, therefore, put itself under the Local Government Act and rated itself and severed the town. Now, it would be manifestly unfair that the whole parish should come under the Sewage Utilization Act, and erect a second jurisdiction over Enfield, and subject the town to two rates merely for the benefit of the rural part of the parish. The only way in which the rural part could obtain these advantages, as it seemed to him, would be to extend the boundaries of the town, and therefore of the operation of the Local Government Act also, over the whole parish. But here, again, the rating difficulty would stand in the way. This point, however, and other amendments in the Sanitary Act, were under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government; but he could not say what they might see fit to carry out during the present Session.