§ MR. PALKsaid, he wished to ask the Home Secretary if it is the intention of the Government to bring in any Bill to remedy the defects proved before a Select Committee of the present Board of Health. It would be in the recollection of the House that the Bill under which the Board of Health now existed was passed in the year 1848; that that Bill had been condemned over and over again; that it had been submitted to Committees, and that various Members of the present administration had attempted to make such modifications and alterations in its provisions as should induce Parliament to adopt it as a permanent measure. Upon all occasions, however, they had failed, and upon the last occasion, which was the Session of 1856, that House, by a large majority, refused to give the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Hertford (Mr. Cowper), permission to introduce the Bill which he then asked leave to bring in. The right hon. Gentleman succeeded, however, in obtaining from the House a continuance of 884 the then existing Act, upon the specific pledge that early in the present Session a Bill should be brought in to amend and remedy the defects which had been proved and admitted to exist in the Board of Health Act. They had now arrived at a period of the Session when it was extremely doubtful whether any measure of that, sort could be introduced; and that circumstance would be fraught with great injury and evil to towns and districts under the present Board of Health, because they had spent all the money they were authorized to raise without having completed the necessary drainage and other works for which they had placed themselves under that Board. Another class had also been deeply aggrieved by the conduct of the Government, because they had been waiting year after year for the promised measure, to enable them to take those steps for the cleansing of their towns which the increase in their population demanded. The only Bill that had been brought before the House was one which the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary was most successful in carrying through a second reading; but he carried it through with so much exertion that he totally forgot to explain or comment upon the nature of that measure. It was nothing more, however, than a simple Bill to render permanent all the evils and defects of the existing law, which had been so repeatedly condemned. It professed to transfer the powers of the Board of Health to the Privy Council, and to save the country £3,000 a year; but it was, in fact to perpetuate the defects of the Act of 1848. He (Mr. Palk) wished, therefore, to know whether it was the intention of the Government to redeem the pledge by means of which they had obtained the renewal of that Act, or whether the promises then made by them were only made for the purpose of gaining time?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he thought it desirable not to make any statement in anticipation of the discussion which would probably take place at a later period of the evening, when the House went into Committee on the General Board of Health Bill; but he might state in reply to the question put to him by the hon. Gentleman, that a Bill had been prepared for materially amending the Act of 1848, although he could not admit that that Act was condemned by the Select Committee, as the hon. Member seemed to infer.