SECOND READING. (Hansard, 21 February 1859)

GENERAL CODRINGTON
said, he rose to move the second reading of this Bill, the object of which was to exempt Woolwich from assessment by the Metropolitan Board of Works. The inhabitants of Woolwich had already expended 25,000 for the drainage of that town and parish, and they considered it would be a great hardship to make them liable to the rates for the main drainage of the Metropolis, believing that they could not derive any advantage from it; but, on the contrary, that the extension of the works to Woolwich would be seriously detrimental to the sanitary condition of the place.

§ MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONS
seconded the Motion.

§ MR. TITE
said he should move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. The district over which the Metropolitan Board of Works had power extended fifteen miles and a half from east to west, and eleven miles from north to south. There was no more reason for exempting Woolwich than for exempting Penge, Sydenham, Hampstead, Highgate, Chelsea, or Fulham. It was said that Woolwich had made a complete system of drainage, but so had the City of London. In both instances the sewage was passed into the Thames, and in both instances it would have to be diverted into the great arterial drains which would have its outfall four miles below Woolwich. The Metropolitan Board of Works, besides having the responsibility of the drainage of the Metropolis, had other duties cast upon them, in making street improvements at a vast outlay, which ought to be provided by the assessment of the whole district. The new street from the Borough to Stamford Street was estimated at £580,000. The street from St. Martin's Lane to King Street £90,000, and another Improvement in the East Part of London would cost £60,000. The Board had borrowed £400,000 of the Bank of England, and had pledged all the Rates including Woolwich for its repayment. It was sought to exempt Woolwich in the same manner as the places mentioned in schedule C of the Act, namely, a district connected with Westminster Abbey, the Charter House, and the Inns of Court, with which it had no analogy, and which in point of fact ought never to have been exempted at all. No such interference ought to be allowed with the operations of a great Commission which was dealing with the main drainage of the Metropolis.

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL
said, that in the Act which constituted the Metropolitan Board of Works the Registrar General's district was deemed to be the Metropolis, and there was no more reason now for exempting Woolwich than for exempting Marylebone.