CONSIDERATION—ADJOURNED DEBATE. (Hansard, 22 August 1860)

§ MR. TITE

said, that he rose to move that the order for the consideration of the Bill be read in order to be discharged. Although the opposition to the Bill had assumed a different form since the early stages, it was still such as to render it impossible for him to proceed with the measure successfully at that period of the Session. He felt that it would be more becoming to withdraw the Bill at once than to enter on an ineffectual struggle. The object of the Bill was simply to apportion the assessment of the rate for certain works in the various parishes in proportion to the benefit derived by each. Before the Act constituting the Metropolitan Board passed in 1855, former Commissioners of Sewers had borrowed money to the amount of £300,000. This money had been spent in making sewers in different districts or levels, and the duty of making rates and collecting this money was cast upon the Board. By the Act of 1855, the apportionment of this debt appeared to the Board to be unreasonable, and they brought in the present Bill to change that apportionment—they also proposed to pay £50,000 of their debt of £300,000 out of the main drainage rate, as it applied to sewers now forming part of that great system. The Metropolitan Board had no interest in the matter, save to do justice to all parties concerned. He (Mr. Tite) had originally brought in this Bill in August 1859. In this year it had been referred to a Select Committee, and the Bill itself was so little objected to, that in the Committee in the House only one clause was altered, and though it was three weeks before it was considered in Committee, there was not a single Amendment proposed to any clause in it. The Bill had been fifteen days before the Select Committee, and the expenses were at least £15,000. The opposition to the Bill at this moment was to obtain a reversal of the decisions of the Select Committee, and in point of fact, to rediscuss the whole matter. For this there was no time, and therefore he withdrew the Bill. He had to return his thanks to the right hon. Member for Bury, Chairman of the Select Committee, for the attention he had given to the subject; and he had himself endeavoured to do his best in order to give the Board an opportunity of standing well with the House on the occasion of the introduction of a similar Bill in the next Session. He (Mr. Tite) concluded by saying that in "another place" the Metropolitan Board had been charac- 1711 terized as an oppressive Board. But that was at once disproved by the fact, that the Board consisted of forty-five members chosen by thirty-seven vestries and district boards, and therefore if they oppressed any one it must be themselves. But they were compelled by the Legislature to levy and assess rates amounting to not less than from £300,000 to £400,000 per annum; and therefore it was not very easy to please all those who had to pay this enormous amount of taxation. He now moved that the Order be read and discharged.