§ SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, that before the noble Lord replied to the observations of the hon. Member for Surrey, he wished to say that he hoped the Government would in Committee take a vote for cleansing the Serpentine. They had lately heard a great deal about calling upon the metropolis to do its duty by purifying the Thames, and he understood that a Bill was to be brought in by the Government which would involve the expenditure of £3,000,000 of money for that purpose. Now, he had no objection, nor did he believe the ratepayers of the metropolis had any objection, to do that which was their duty; but he contended that that which applied to the metropolis equally applied to Government; and that as the Parks were under their sole control, and the Serpentine was as great a nuisance as it was possible to imagine during the hot weather, it was the duty of the Government to take care that a stagnant pool of water should not continue to exist in the centre of London, when a remedy could be easily effected by the expenditure of a sum of money for the purpose. Representations had been made to him that during the recent hot weather, when everybody was complaining of the state of the Thames, the stench from the Serpentine extended even to Park-lane and Hyde Park-gardens; and no wonder that it should be so, when it was recollected 1396 that the water which ran into the Serpentine came from the overflow of one of the London sewers, which contained the drainage of Kilburn Cemetery and that neighbourhood. Three years ago preparations were made by the Commissioners of Sewers for diverting the sewage to which he referred, but up to this time nothing whatever had been done in that direction; and as hundreds of thousands of people were in the habit of using the Serpentine for bathing in morning and evening during the summer months it was really intolerable that the state of things should be allowed to continue longer. The late Commissioner of Works, though attacked at the time for what he did by some Members of the present Government, had effected great good in St. James's Park, where the water was now so clear that any one might see the smallest object at the bottom. The pumping power there established was sufficient to pump fresh water into the Serpentine, and a very small outlay would effect all that was desired. No risk need be incurred in moving the mud, for concrete could be laid over it, as was done in St. James's Park. He hoped the noble Lord the First Commissioner of Works would take the matter into his consideration.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, the hon. Member for Surrey had put speeches into his mouth which he had never made, and attributed to him sentiments which he never entertained. The hon. Member imagined that it was a pleasure to him (Lord J. Manners) to be the trustee of a piece of low land, bounded on one side by an ordinary fence and on the other by an open sewer, and it was on this spot that the Chief Commissioner was supposed to take his daily exercise. He could, however, assure the hon. Gentleman that, so far from desiring to retain the control over the tracts of land referred to, he should be glad if the hon. Gentleman would bring him a capitalist with whom he could enter into arrangements for its sale; but, up to the present moment, he had received no offer of any kind, either from the hon. Gentleman or anybody else; and he need not say that of course, in order to effect a sale, it was necessary to have a purchaser. In answer to inquiries which he had made, he had been informed that when the general system of metropolitan drainage was carried out, and the sewers covered over, the ground would be in a fit state for sale; and he had reason to hope that then these hundred acres of land would become popular 1397 and valuable as an investment for building purposes. Whenever that took place, it would, of course, be his first duty to sell the land on the best terms he could obtain in the interests of the public. He would beg the hon. Gentleman, however, not to run away with the idea that, even if the land were sold, there would be any surplus available for the reduction of the tolls on Chelsea Bridge; for the hon. Gentleman had slightly underrated, in the figures which he had placed before the House, the extent of the liability on this hundred acres of land. The total sum which had been advanced by the Exchequer Loan Commissioners, for the purchase and construction of Battersea Park, was £200,000, in addition to which there was a sum of £58,000 due for interest. True, £65,000 had been obtained by the sale to a railway company of a certain portion of the land on the outside of the park; but deducting that sum from the £258,000, which was the amount of the liability now imposed upon the hundred acres of land, the sum total remaining to be provided was £190,000. His own belief was that the park might be made to repay itself in the manner he had pointed out on a former occasion; but he could not say that he hoped there would be any surplus sufficient to make any diminution in the tolls of Chelsea Bridge. The hon. Gentleman held out a hope that a subscription, to be applied to the abolition of the tolls, might be expected from the inhabitants of Chelsea and the neighbourhood; and of course, if those who derived the greatest advantage from the park and the bridge subscribed any considerable sum with that object, it would be very acceptable to the Government. With regard to the observations of the hon. Member for Westminster (Sir J. Shelley), he was bound to say that he did not agree with the hon. Baronet in the statement he had made as to the offensive condition of the Serpentine in the hot weather. On the contrary, he had received information that so pellucid was the water in the Serpentine after the application of a quantity of lime, that persons were to be seen drinking that water out of the palms of their hands—a thing which had not been witnessed on the banks of the Serpentine for years past; and so encouraged was he by the effects of the lime, that he was applying to the Treasury for a Vote of public money to apply more, if need were, during the prevalence of the hot weather. He did tot mean to say that the normal condition 1398 of the Serpentine was anything but what the hon. Baronet had represented, but a remedy could not be effected without an enormous expenditure of money. The question, as the hon. Baronet was, no doubt, aware, had been under the consideration of successive First Commissioners of Works for many years past; but every First Lord of the Treasury had felt it to be inconsistent with his duty to ask for a large Vote to rectify the evil. There were great differences of opinion, even amongst medical men, as to the effects which great works of that sort produced upon the health of a neighbourhood. The hon. Member was quite right in pointing out, that until the evil results of the sewer at the north end were remedied, it would be in vain to incur any large expenditure in improving the Serpentine. He hoped, however, that the Metropolitan Board of Works, or the district Board, would soon settle that question effectively; and when that was done, it would be the duty of the Government to take into consideration the best means of permanently purifying the condition of the Serpentine.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, that the proposition of the hon. Member for Surrey was a reasonable one—namely, to ascertain the value of the land. The noble Lord said he had had no offer for the land, but the noble Lord had a Bill before the House which continued the toll on Chelsea Bridge until the debt was paid, and it would take thirty years to terminate it. He remembered that the late Mr. Cubitt offered to take the land in question, to pay off the principal and interest of the debt, and to give part of the land for a park. But the offer was not accepted. If the land was sold, and there was no surplus, any deficiency which might exist might be met by a subscription.