METROPOLIS LOCAL MANAGEMENT BILL. (Hansard, 22 May 1855)

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
said, that the previous clause relating to the appointment of the chairman of the Metropolitan Board had already been postponed, as a suggestion had been made that, instead of the members of the Board sending in three names to the Secretary of State for him to select from, they should elect their chairman themselves. Under these circumstances, he proposed that Clauses 27 and 28, which had a connection with the appointment of the chairman, should likewise be postponed.

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
inquired whether the members of the Board were to have any qualification?

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
thought it would be best to leave the Vestries and District Boards to elect such persons as they thought proper. He proposed to bring up a clause to provide that the election of the members of the Board should take place in great parishes by wards, which should be framed in conformity with the Municipal Corporation Act.

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL,
in reply to an observation from Viscount EBRINGTON, said, it was impossible for him at present to say what should be the exact number of the members of the Board; but, whether it was fixed at thirty or at forty-five, he thought nine members, as proposed by the present clause, would constitute a fair quorum.

LORD SEYMOUR
thought the clause had better be postponed until the number of the members of the Board was decided on.

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
said, that he had promised, after the Bill passed through Committee, to introduce a measure for the purpose of amending Hobhouse's Act; but it had been suggested to him to insert in 884 the present measure such amended provisions from that Act as might be necessary. Adopting that view, he proposed to strike out Clause 35.

§ VISCOUNT EBRINGTON
trusted that full opportunity would be afforded of discussing the amended provisions from Hobhouse's Act, proposed to be incorporated in the present Bill.

§ MR. T. DUNCOMBE
said, that all parties were agreed as to the principle of Hobhouse's Act, and no difference of opinion really existed between the noble Lord and the right hon. Baronet.

LORD SEYMOUR
expressed an opinion that the clause gave too much power to a committee, composed, it might be, of only three persons. He thought the committee should be required to report to the Board, and have their proceedings confirmed.

§ MR. LABOUCHERE
said, he thought the powers of taxation conferred by the clause were far too large. It was very dangerous to give great taxing powers to a committee of not more than three members, and he hoped the right hon. Baronet would take care to give security against abuse of such power.

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
said, he would take care that such security should be given, and he would bring up the clause again for reconsideration.

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
thought some protection should be given to owners of property as well as to ratepayers, by enabling them to inspect the books.

§ VISCOUNT EBRINGTON
suggested that this would be done by inserting the words "owner of property," along with "churchwardens, overseers," &c. as entitled to inspect books.

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
said, he should agree to the Amendment.

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
said, he looked upon this as one of the most important clauses of the Bill. It had not been inserted without due consideration, and in the firm belief that it was absolutely ne- 885 cessary for the good working of the measure. It was, in short, an essential feature of the Bill, and he hoped the House would at once determine the point which it raised, as that point materially affected other parts of the measure.

§ MR. MASTERS SMITH
wished to hear from the right hon. Gentleman what the definition of a main sewer was?

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
said, the main sewers to be dealt with under the Bill were all mentioned in a Parliamentary paper, which had been laid on the table of the House. That document would be included in a schedule.

§ VISCOUNT EBRINGTON
wished to call the attention of the House to the inconvenience that he feared would arise from the operation of this clause. In the Fleet valley, for instance, there were nine separate districts; and, when it was considered that the sewers would require to be constructed on one system, it became obvious that the arrangement proposed in the clause would be very inconvenient. He knew it was said that everything done by the District Boards would be under the sanction of the Metropolitan Board of' Works. Now, that sanction would be either a matter of course, in which case it would fail to secure efficiency; or, else it would involve double toil and trouble, and be equivalent to doing the work twice over. The central Board was to interpose, where necessary, for the purpose of securing harmony of co-operation among the different districts; but, he contended, that just as much correspondence, just as much heartburning and contention, would be the result of such a control, as would be experienced if the whole works were placed under the direct management of a centralised authority. It was almost impossible to conceive that the thirty districts included in the Bill could rightly carry out the works intrusted to them, considering the differences in the natural position of the parishes, and other circumstances that would stand in the way. He objected, also, to the multiplication of officers and engineers that would be required under this provision of the Bill. For these reasons, looking at the inconvenience arising from the different forms and shapes of the parishes, at the manner in which their boundaries stood, with the natural "lay" of the ground, and also at the enormous multiplication of offices, and the increase of taxation that would be unnecessarily imposed on the ratepayers, he would sug- 886 gest that, at first, at any rate while the great works of drainage were going on, the whole management of the sewers should be placed under the General Metropolitan Board. His experience led him to think that by the appointment of a paid chairman, who would devote his time to these duties, the works would be much more efficiently done than they were likely to be under the management of thirty-six independent clashing and conflicting authorities. He therefore pressed the Committee to place the whole management in the hands of the General Metropolitan Board.

§ LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR
did not think the system proposed in the clause would involve those conflicting interests that his noble Friend seemed to apprehend. He thought it would be exceedingly inconvenient if persons in a particular district were to be compelled to wait on a central Board at a distance whenever a sewer was to be constructed, instead of having the matter settled by an authority to be found at their own doors. If this provision were rejected, and in its place a central Board appointed, the Act would, in his opinion, become unworkable. Besides, the noble Lord might depend upon it, that the inhabitants of the metropolis were determined to have the management of their own local works, and, unless the management of the sewers was intrusted to the vestries and local Boards, the Bill would never be carried into effect.

§ SIR WILLIAM CLAY
agreed with the noble Lord who had just spoken, that the inhabitants of every part of the metropolis were anxious to have the charge of their own district works. He did not see that such difficulties attended the operation of the clause as the noble Lord (Viscount Ebrington) seemed to imagine. The system would soon work itself into shape, and the different parishes would be found going on in a most amicable and practical spirit, the different parish surveyors, of course, acting with a knowledge of the rules laid down by the central Board.

§ MR. H. BARING
did not see why the General Metropolitan Board should not have the management of these works? The power given to the District Boards by this clause was enormous.

§ MR. W. WILLIAMS
never expected to hear a Member for Marylebone in that House endeavouring to supersede a system of local government by one of centralisation. The noble Lord was not content with throwing the sewerage into the hands 887 of a central body, but he suggested that the whole system should be vested in one individual. If the power of local management were taken out of this Bill, a storm of opposition would be raised to it in every parish of the metropolis.

§ MR. LABOUCHERE
said, the question was, whether the local sewerage should be entrusted to one central body or to smaller bodies in the several districts, and he must say he was inclined to prefer the plan laid down in the Bill to that proposed by the noble Lord (Viscount Ebrington). He thought the Committee would do wisely in adopting the system that was most consonant with the wishes of the inhabitants of the metropolis, and he could not believe that the difficulties which lay in the way of working that system were so great as the noble Lord seemed to think. At the same time, he should have been satisfied if the districts had been fewer in number.

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
said, that the question with respect to the division of localities into districts had been fully considered. The Bill had to deal with large areas already divided, and he had adapted, as far as he could, the new legislation to the existing divisions. The large drainage of the metropolis had failed under one Board, and he had endeavoured to make the existing divisions of the metropolis as useful as possible for the purpose. Considering that the population of the metropolis amounted to 2,500,000 persons, and was increasing every year, he did not believe that the number of the District Boards would be found too many. It had been asked why such large powers were given to them; but if he threw on them the duty of certain drainage he must also give them sufficient powers to execute that duty, and those powers were not more arbitrary than existed in the City of London. There were about 1,500 miles of streets in the metropolis, not reckoning little courts or alleys; and there were only 934 miles of sewerage; so that there were 566 miles of streets without any sewerage whatever. That was under the system of centralisation. Taking the number of houses at 306,000, he calculated that there were 150,000 houses without sewerage in front or back, into which the refuse of those houses could possibly be drained. That was a fact startling enough to induce him to press the clause under consideration, in order that the local districts might do that which the centralised authority had not 888 been able to effect. He could say that, in one of the large parishes of the metropolis—in the borough, for example, which he represented—there was a particular street consisting of first-class houses, from sixty to 100 in number, where only two houses had a drain into the sewer. There ought, therefore, to be given powers to make drains into the common sewer, and to do away with the abomination of cesspools. Not only the great landowners in the metropolis, but the intermediate persons who held under them, desired to have this power taken from a central Board, and vested in local authorities, so that this town, the greatest city in the world, might not be left in the disgraceful state he had mentioned.

§ VISCOUNT EBRINGTON
said, the right hon. Baronet placed the House in this dilemma—that they must either submit to be governed by a central Board, or adopt a far too great number of minor Boards calculated upon far too small area limits. Both these systems were evils, but he thought one central Board the lesser evil of the two. If the right hon. Baronet would constitute seven or eight minor Boards of reasonable dimensions and within reasonable limits, he would be quite willing to vest in them powers even greater than those the right hon. Baronet proposed to give to the minor Boards in the Bill. He would not, however, press the matter to a division.

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
regarded the present as a doubtful scheme, and conceived that it would have been better to have established two, three, or four bodies exercising supreme power in their several districts than thirty-six, each of which, having separate staffs, would occasion enormous cost, and lead to every possible sort of collision.

LORD SEYMOUR
wished to know whether, if any of these District Boards desired to run a sewer under a public building, the Metropolitan Board would have a distinct power to prohibit a work of that kind, which might be dangerous to the safety of the building; and he also wished to know why this particular number of thirty-six districts had been selected?

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
explained that the districts had been selected in this way—he first of all took the parishes sole, being large parishes with a population of about 70,000 each, as districts; and next he took other divisions, where parishes had been incorporated for Poor Law pur- 889 poses, having in each incorporation a population of about 60,000 persons. He had thought it better to take these divisions than to make others of his own. He conceived that under the 109th clause the Metropolitan Board would have the power of controlling the District Boards.

§ MR. CHARLES BUTLER
wished to know whether there was any clause in the Bill to prevent rivers and watercourses being contaminated by sewers running into them?

§ VISCOUNT EBRINGTON
said, if that was done, the question would arise where the drainage was to go. The matter carried away by the drains was no doubt of a most fertilising nature, and means ought to be taken to turn it to account for the purpose of fertilising our fields; but, under present circumstances, he thought the least mischievous mode of getting rid of it was by turning temporarily the drainage of towns into the streams, taking care that it reached the streams below the points where the water was taken for drinking or domestic purposes.

§ SIR J. V. SHELLEY
quite agreed with the noble Lord that the sewerage should be carried away from the metropolis, but he was quite opposed to the pollution of the Thames, or any other streams and rivers. The sewerage could be carried away by arterial drains to an outfall provided in lands for the purpose.

§ VISCOUNT EBRINGTON
explained that in the observations he made he had reference to more distant watercourses than the Thames.

LORD SEYMOUR
observed that it was an important question where the outfall of drainage should be. They had been for years saying that no drainage ought to go into the Thames; and he thought that a clause should be brought up, if there was no provision already in the Bill to the effect, declaring that after a certain date no drainage should be allowed to go into the Thames between certain limits.

§ SIR B. HALL
said, that he would propose a clause tending to carry out the views of the noble Lord. It would be difficult to fix a date at which the drainage of sewage into the Thames should cease, but a clause might be introduced to provide that works should be commenced for the purpose, and that they should be finished as soon as possible.

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
said, he should have no objection to introduce a clause to provide that where District Boards were not inclined to do certain works, it should be in the power of the General Board, if it was thought necessary, to carry them on.