HC Deb 06 February 1852 vol 119 cc220-31
MR. MOWATT

said, he rose to ask a similar leave to that of the noble Lord, namely, to bring in a Bill purporting to have the same object—the better supply of water to the metropolis, and the adoption of a better system of drainage. He would take up very little of the time of the House in explaining the necessity for the introduction of some such measure as that, for he thought it would be admitted on all hands that there was a very great want for an amended system of supplying the metropolis with water, and also an amended system of drainage. Indeed, the very fact of the noble Lord bringing in a Government Bill, released him (Mr. Mowatt) from the necessity of establishing that proposition. There was, however, an essential difference between the Bill of the noble Lord and that which he (Mr. Mowatt) proposed to bring in. The noble Lord said very properly that his Bill was only controlling and permissive; whereas his (Mr. Mowatt's), while providing expressly for the same objects as that of the noble Lord, went a great deal further. He (Mr. Mowatt) said most unhesitatingly that this was not a question for the interference of Government except to the extent of enlarging, he would not say creating, municipal institutions in the metropolis, to enable the inhabitants to do what was required for themselves. He proposed a Ratepayers' Bill, and was of opinion that the inhabitants of the metropolis, who paid for and used water, and who were affected by drainage, were the proper persons to determine the question of the supply of water and the system of drainage: in other words, that they should have the management of their own affairs in their own hands. This was no new doctrine. It was recognised by the constitution, and was a part of it, as it involved the principle of self-government. It was his wish to grant further facilities to the ratepayers, to enable them to take these two matters into their own charge. He therefore proposed to divide the metropolis into seventeen districts, and in each of them to give the ratepayers powers to elect district commissioners to administer the affairs of the two services of the water supply and the drainage, who should be under the control of a central commissioner in their own district. There should be also powers given to the ratepayers, in proportion to their numbers and their rating, to elect boards, varying in number, but in no case to consist of less than nine members. The district commissioners to have power to elect out of their own body general central commissioners, amounting to forty-one. To that number he proposed to allow the Government, if they thought fit to exercise it, the power of associating four other commissioners, representing the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, the Poor Law Board, and other boards whose property might be affected; in other words, that the Government should have a voice in the working of the Commission. He proposed that the Commission should be incorporated for the purposes of the Bill. It would be, of course, obvious that the Commissioners would require powers for raising the requisite capital, first of all to establish an entirely new system of water supply, and an entirely new system of trunk drainage; and next to provide all other means necessary for putting in working order the management of those two services. Accordingly, powers were given in the Bill to the Commissioners to rate the inhabitants of the metropolis for the purpose of raising the requisite capital for putting the machinery in operation, and for its future maintenance. In short, that the ratepayers should have power to do that in this matter which they now had power to do in all matters relating to themselves. It was obvious, notwithstanding what the noble Lord (Lord Seymour) had said with regard to companies, that water was quite an exceptional case, being a necessary of life, and one which could hardly be made, in this large metropolis, the legitimate source of occupation to a mercantile company. He was surprised that the noble Lord had not come to the same conclusion, considering the impartial attention he had given to the subject, and arrived at the opinion that this was a case in which companies could not legitimately meet the wants of the public. He would only mention the fact that all the companies were originally created and their existence sanctioned by Parliament, on the understanding that it would be for the interest of the metropolis that there should be competition amongst them for the supply of water to the inhabitants. It was assumed that if there was competition, the interests of the public would be sufficiently guaranteed. But it was lost sight of that two companies could not compete in one district. It was impossible for the inhabitants of Portland-place, if they were dissatisfied with one company, to apply to another, for it would not be worth their while to break up the streets and lay down mains and pipes. The public had no guarantee against the acts of the companies, and he thought it was much to their credit that they had treated the public so tenderly and moderately as they had, when it was considered that, high as their rates were, they had power to make them twice as high. However it might be with others, the supply of water to the poorer classes was not a legitimate source of profit. It was clear the poorer classes ought to be supplied, if not at the expense of the wealthy, at least without profit to a mercantile company, and he believed every one would agree with him in coming to this conclusion. While, therefore, the Bill which he desired to lay on the table provided that the water should be good in quality, moderate in price, and sufficient in supply, he humbly submitted that by creating the body to which he had referred, and placing it under the influence of the opinion of their brother ratepayers throughout the metropolis, the public would have a much stronger guarantee for all those essentials being carried into practice than by simply providing, by an Act of Parliament, that the thing should be done. He did not propose by his Bill to take any provision whatever with respect to the source of the water supply or the disposal of the sewage, for the reason that when the Commissioners should be appointed they would be much better able than probably the whole House put together to come to a right decision on those questions. In all probability, one of the first acts of the Commission would be to invite public tenders from all parts of the kingdom for the best mode of supplying the metropolis with water, and for the best scheme of putting it into execution, as well as for the best system of trunk drainage, and the most advantageous way of disposing of the sewage of this great metropolis. The noble Lord had quoted instances of the partial failure of corporations with regard to water supply; but he (Mr. Mowatt) thought the case of the metropolis was essentially different from that of any town, not even excepting Edinburgh. Even supposing it to be the fact that ratepayers were so incapable a body, or were so organised in vestries and similar boards as that they could not work in unison nor manage their own affairs in relation to water supply and drainage; still, as they were to pay for them, they were consequently the proper parties to manage them; and he should contend for that principle, even if it could be shown that they had failed to carry out the service of those two articles. It was one of the advantages of our social institutions, of which we were most proud, that we possessed self-government, and one which was to be cherished notwithstanding any abuses that might exist in it. He was himself a vestryman, and as able to appreciate the difficulties of such institutions as the noble Lord. With regard to the question of the expense of these great services, and the rights of existing companies, he proposed by his Bill that, whenever the companies were interfered with by the Commission, that within a reasonable time they should be abolished, compensation being awarded to them by arbitration; so that, whatever might be the value of their property, it might be ascertained, and compensation paid to them. To provide the funds necessary for carrying the Bill into operation, he proposed that the Commission should have the power of rating all the property of the metropolis in a sum not exceeding 8d. in the pound in any one year for the water supply and drainage. A further rate, not exceeding 4d. in the pound, might be imposed for other expenses, including compensation to the companies. On the whole, this would be to limit them to a rate—everything included, even to the compensation to the water companies—not exceeding twelvepence in the pound. This, hon. Members would be good enough to remember, would amount to less than the average rating of houses, at present, for water alone: and obviously, if by putting the water supply and the sewage arrangements together on the best possible footing, compensating, at the same time, the companies which would be extinguished, they charged for the two not more than was at present charged for the one, they at once effected a very considerable pecuniary saving to the public. It might be said that this statement as to the present rate was not strictly true, because there were houses in Belgrave-square and in Portland-place which were rated much lower than this proportion; but, on the other hand, there were smaller houses in other neighbourhoods which were rated much higher than twelvepence in the pound, and, on the whole, therefore, this would be much less than the average. It would be asked, how could this rate of twelvepence in the pound provide the necessary sum for carrying out this great work which would be necessary, as well as for granting the compensation to the companies. He proposed to provide the money in this way. He had ascertained by returns made to the House last Session that the property of the metropolis rated to the relief of the poor exceeded in value the sum of 12,000,000l.; and this rated at 8d. in the pound, would give a sum of 400,000l. per annum. In order to raise the requisite capital, he proposed to take power under the Act to issue annuities, terminable and otherwise, for sums of 20l. per annum; and this, he had good reason to believe, would be regarded by the public as a desirable investment; secured as it would be by the whole rating of the metropolis, and admitting of a simple and ready transfer. He proceeded on the calculation, therefore, that the capital could be raised on most favourable terms, probably at from 3 to 4 per cent. The reasons which had urged the association with which he acted to combine the two questions of water supply and sewage, would be evident to every one on consideration. You could not supply water for domestic purposes without providing means of afterwards getting rid of that water. On the other hand, the sewage could not be managed if the managers had not an adequate command of water; and hence the expediency of combining the two services, not only under one set of commissioners, but in other respects. In short, the scheme which he had detailed to the House, was applying the existing municipal machinery to a general purpose in the least expensive and most efficient manner. If they were to have the municipal machinery resorted to at all, it must be reverted to in this manner. One parish could do nothing but by combining with another parish; and it was, therefore, apparent that some such incorporation of districts as that which he had proposed must be sanctioned by Parliament, in order to admit of their working out the existing institutions. He should conclude by moving for leave to bring in a Bill for vesting the water supply and drainage of the metropolis in commissioners representing the inhabitants thereof.

LORD DUDLEY STUART

seconded the Motion.

VISCOUNT EBRINGTON

said, he proposed making a few remarks on both the Bills just brought before the House, and should now be able to do so without troubling the House more than once. He concluded that the Bill of the noble Lord, as well as that of the hon. Member, were to be submitted to a Select Committee as rival candidates for favour. [Cries of "No, no !"] He drew that inference from what had happened last year. Well, then, whether the Government Bill was alone to be referred to a Select Committee, or not, the House must decide the principle. On several points he agreed much more with the hon. Member for Falmouth than the noble Lord. He agreed with the hon. Member in the general view he took of the principle which ought to govern legislation on this subject, and which raised it above a mere question of commercial speculation; and he was surprised the principle of competition was still adhered to by Her Majesty's Government in such an article as water. He agreed with him as to uniting under the control of the same body the water supply and drainage. He agreed with him that these matters belonged to a class properly to be dealt with by public authority, and that on general principles that authority ought to be the municipality of the town; at the same time, in the case of the metropolis, there were special considerations which in his opinion furnished grave reasons why the House should pause before they adopted the course proposed by the hon. Member. In the first place, supposing the whole matter to be ultimately placed under the superintendence and control of a popularly-elected body, it did not follow necessarily that the ratepayers would in the first instance be competent to decide upon the difficult and complicated question upon which even scientific men were still not quite agreed—as to the best scheme for the water supply and drainage of the metropolis. It was conceivable that Government, with the superior knowledge and appliances at their command, might advantageously lay down a general scheme, in the first instance, to be worked out by popularly-elected bodies; and on that point he was at issue with the hon. Member. But with regard to the question of the establishment of such a popularly-elected body in London, he must have very little attended to what had taken place on the Continent, who did not see that the relations between the State and the municipality of the capital, were most difficult safely and satisfactorily to adjust: the experience of Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, showed that they now were questions of the greatest delicacy and importance. He was alarmed at the levity with which the Government had, in the first instance, treated this question of what would have been practically a metropolitan municipality, when it was proposed by the hon. Member; but before the end of the Session, he had been relieved by the observations made upon it by his noble Friend at the head of the Government, which proved that he, at least, was aware of the importance of the question. The House should consider carefully a proposition conferring such powers on a body representing the whole of the inhabitants of the metropolis. Whatever might be the specific duties they might be called on to discharge in their corporate capacity, it was quite clear that such a body, acting in close proximity to the very seat of the Legislature, would exercise a very powerful influence on the Government and Legislature of the country. Though the conduct of the Government on sanitary questions had last year been far from encouraging—though that of the noble Lord in particular, as regarded the Commission of Sewers, the working of the Public Health Act, and, above all, of the Interment Act, had been far from satisfactory; yet, he confessed, with regard to the question of uniting the management of water supply and drainage, he was sanguine enough to entertain hopes, from what had fallen from the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer on a former occasion, that the Government would have seen the necessity and desirableness of such a union. The noble Lord (Lord Seymour) would leave every important item of expense to be determined by the Committee; and the inhabitants of the metropolis were not furnished with any approximation even to the rates to be charged on them. Why had the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was so ready to remit money due in Ireland, or to lay out money on that most splendidly inconvenient House in which they were assembled, refused 500l. to enable the Board of Health to finish the levels and surveys necessary to afford a perfect notion of the expense to be incurred for the supply and drainage of the metropolis? Instead of that, he proposed referring the various Water Bills in a body to a Select Committee, the expenses of which, for days together, in lawyers and witnesses, had amounted to 1,000l. a day; and the effect of the whole of this expenditure was to leave the ratepayers exactly as they were before. The Committee appointed never made any report to the House; and now it was proposed to appoint another Committee, who would perhaps sit as the previous one had done, accumulate still more evidence, and produce another huge blue book with the same absence of any practical result. Now, with regard to the estimate of expenditure, in the absence of the information which might have been given to the House by the Board of Health, if the small sum of money he had mentioned had been expended in procuring it, we were obliged to look at what had been done in other towns. Besides Tavistock, where the Duke of Bedford, the owner of considerable property there, had undertaken both the drainage and the water supply, there were several towns in which those two departments were placed under one management; and in many of these the public works necessary for the supply of water had been laid down at something less than 10s. per head of the population. This was in towns which were constantly increasing in size, and in which it had been necessary to make provision for the future supply of nearly double the present population. In Manchester, he believed, what is technically known as the "piping," had been provided, notwithstanding the large quantity required for manufacturing purposes, at 10s. per head upon the number of inhabitants. Now, every one knew that in the case of very large works there was a considerable saving; but even assuming that the sum of 10s. per head of the population would be required for the new piping of the metropolis, they would have at most but 1,000,000l. or 1,250,000l. of expenditure to lay out under that head; and, then supposing the money obtained and dealt with on the same principle as the drainage loan advanced to landowners by the Government, the interest and principal of which are paid off in thirty years, there would be an annual cost to the ratepayers of only something like 100,000l., so that they would be enabled to supply the ordinary dwellings of the poor at the same rate which was now charged by water companies for supplying a single room. He did think the House had great reason to complain of the crude and unsatisfactory measure now proposed by Her Majesty's Government. But, as he would have another opportunity of further discussing the measure before it was exiled to the Select Committee to which it was proposed to be consigned, he would reserve the further remarks which he should have to make until after he had had the advantage of seeing the clauses of the Bill in print.

SIR GEORGE GREY

considered that the hon. Member for Falmouth (Mr. Mowatt), who had just moved for leave to introduce his Bill, had adopted a fair and proper course. He had objected to the scheme of the Government for improving the supply of water to the metropolis, and had embodied his views and opinions on the subject in his Bill, and had asked leave of the House to be allowed to introduce it, in order that its provisions might be placed side by side with the Government measure, and the House be afforded an opportunity of judging of the respective merits of the two proposals. His noble Friend (Viscount Ebrington) who had just addressed the House, had not, however, adopted an equally fair course, either to the House, to the Government, or to the hon. Member for Falmouth. Considering the great attention which the noble Lord had paid to the whole subject of sanitary legislation, he was somewhat surprised that he had not submitted to the House the proposal he had to make, together with the criticisms which he had offered upon the Government measure. The noble Lord had objected to everything, and proposed nothing. He (Sir G. Grey) concluded from what had fallen from the noble Lord, that he wished the Government to take the whole question of water supply to the metropolis into their own hands by means of a Government Commission, which should be responsible to Parliament, but which was to charge itself with the whole superintendence of this duty. Now, he (Sir G. Grey) had on a previous occasion stated his objection to such a course, and his noble Friend had certainly not stated any new arguments in support of it. As to the application to the metropolis of a representative system in connection with the water supply, he agreed with his noble Friend that there was considerable difficulty in its adoption; but it was not in a Committee of the House, but in the whole House on the second reading, that it would be for hon. Members to decide between the principle of the Bill proposed by the hon. Member for Falmouth (Mr. Mowatt), and that of the Government measure. His noble Friend had taunted the Government—not very charitably, as he (Sir G. Grey) thought—with an intention to leave the subject in the hands of the Select Committee, with a view to the production of a "large blue book;" but the noble Lord ought to know that the Bill introduced by the Government, as well as that brought forward by the hon. Member for Falmouth, must be referred to a Select Committee, not by the wish of the Government, but by the invariable rule of the House, which required that private Bills and Bills of this description should be referred to such a Committee. It was therefore really without any such intention as that attributed to the Government, but in deference to and in accordance with the rules of the House, that they had pursued the course commented on by the noble Lord.

VISCOUNT EBRINGTON

explained, that he was quite aware of the necessity, under the regulation of the House, of referring the Bill to the Committee upstairs; but what he complained of was, that his noble Friend proposed to leave the Committee to complete his unfinished Bill for him.

MR. SLANEY

considered, that in any Bill that House might adopt, it would be obligatory to have water supplied to the dwellings of the humbler classes, below a certain amount; and, if he had understood his noble Friend (Lord Seymour) aright, I it was intended that this provision should; be enforced. It was one of the greatest evils that existed in many large towns that no such obligation existed, and the consequence was, that the owner of the house would not pay the rate, the poor occupant was not able to pay, and small tenements went unsupplied with water, entailing oftentimes a state of disease which was productive of considerable expense to the ratepayers. Another point to which he wished to refer was this—that though in his opinion it was not absolutely necessary that the same parties who had the management of the sewerage should have the management of the water supply, it was absolutely necessary that they should have such a command over the supply as to carry out what was essential for purposes of drainage. It appeared to him perfectly practicable to call upon the company, or whoever they might be, to grant such a supply of water as was necessary properly to cleanse the sewere. Every one knew that under the improved mode of drainage through piping it was quite impossible to have a perfect system of sewerage unless there was a sufficient supply of water, and that sufficient supply of water it would be necessary to procure by means of stringent provisions in any Bill that was adopted.

SIR JOHN JOHNSTONE,

as one of those connected with a large water company in the metropolis, had looked forward with great anxiety to the Government Bill of the present Session. He wished to state to the House that the present measure was entirely the production of the Government, without reference to any of the companies, none of whom, as far as he knew, had been asked for suggestions. He approved of the general principles proposed to regulate the water supply, and he would remind the House that it was very nearly the precise plan which he (Sir J. Johnstone) had suggested when the Government Bill was first introduced. Some of the provision might be productive of harm, but, as they would have to be submitted to a Select Committee, he would not offer any further remarks on the subject.

Leave given.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mowatt, Mr. Lushington, and Lord Dudley Stuart.

Bill read 1°.