§ MR. MALINSsaid, he rose to call the attention of the House to the Petitions of the General Committee of the Thames and Isis Navigation, and the Mayor and Corporation of the Borough of Wallingford, presented to this House on the 7th of March; and to put a question to the President of the Board of Trade relating thereto. He said the object of these petitions was to point out the present state of the navigation of the upper portion of the river Thames above Staines, and to show that the locks and weirs had fallen into a state of decay; and unless something was done the navigation of that great river would become a thing of the past. Since the establishment of railways the traffic of the 224 Thames above Staines had decreased; and of course the revenue had decreased. In the petition of the Commissioners it was pointed out that in 1845 their revenue was £14,000. In 1846 it fell to £11,000; and it had gone on diminishing year by year until in 1864 it only amounted to the insignificant sum of £3,097. The consequence of this was that it became absolutely impossible for the Commissioners to discharge the duties imposed upon them by keeping up the navigation of the river. He ought to explain that the part of the navigation of the Thames of which he spoke was not under the Thames Conservancy, whose powers stopped at the City stone, above the bridge at Staines. At that point commenced the control of these Commissioners, and it extended to Cricklade or to Lechlade, beyond which the river was not properly navigable. Along this line, between Staines and Lechlade, there were thirty-five locks, and of course weirs and other works, to be maintained, which were maintained by means of the revenue raised from tolls. The Commissioners had been empowered by various Acts to borrow to the extent of £100,000. Their present debt was £88,000. That originally carried interest at the rate of 5 per cent. They were obliged gradually to lower the interest, and now the interest had ceased altogether to be paid. The consequence was that the creditors who had lent this money were dissatisfied. Some of them wished to take possession of the navigation, and would, if anything could be made of it. But so far was it from being possible to make anything of it that the Commissioners in consequence of want of money, had been compelled to discharge all their workmen, and the river was unproductive. There were 170 miles from Staines to Lechlade in this state of decay, the locks and weirs from non-repair being almost useless. It was, therefore, to be apprehended that the water would no longer be kept within its proper channel, and that by floods and otherwise the river would be diverted from its present course and become a succession of deep pools and shallows. It was not only with reference to the navigation he was speaking, but with reference to the supply of water for the various purposes of life to which this river was applicable; and this being the river which communicated with London, the great metropolis of England, the question was whether the Government could acquiesce in the present state of things. He contended it would be a dis- 225 grace to England if they allowed this magnificent river and important water highway to fall into decay. He and many of the hon. Members present, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the hon. Members for the City of London, although he might not be aware of the fact, were ex officio Commissioners; and he thought they ought to sympathize with the acting Commissioners in their difficulties. But he was afraid none of the ex officio members of the Board had done their duty. The petition stated that the Commissioners were ready to do everything they could, but they could not find the funds. The question which he wished to put to the President of the Board of Trade was, whether he was prepared, on the part of the Government, to recommend the appointment of a Royal Commission, or a Committee, or to take any other step, with a view of remedying this lamentable state of things? Either private or public money must be found for the purpose. The Chancellor of the Exchequer shook his head at the suggestion of public money being found; but were the Government to see this great highway in a state of ruin for the want of a few thousand pounds? Mr. Leech, the Surveyor of the Thames Conservancy, in his Report stated that all the locks and weirs were falling into decay. A deputation which he had the honour to introduce to the President of the Board of Trade last summer stated that at that time £20,000 would be sufficient to put the whole in a complete state of repair, and that if an arrangement could be made with the old lockowners for a uniform rate of toll the revenue might be raised to such an extent as to be sufficient to pay the Government interest at the rate of 3½ per cent, also to pay the creditors and the expense of keeping the navigation in repair. The Commissioners had a difficulty to contend with owing to there being certain private lock-owners, who, though their locks were not used, under an Act of George III. were still allowed to charge the same tolls as they were entitled to receive when the traffic passed through their locks. The Commissioners had for several years past been trying to induce the old lockowners to reduce their tolls, and in June last they made another attempt at an arrangement based on a system of payment in one sum for all through traffic at greatly reduced rates. They obtained the assent of a majority of the owners, but the arrangement fell through because a small minority stood 226 out. The revenue of the river had dwindled from £14,000 a year in 1845 to £3,000 in 1864, and in the present year it would probably be still less. The banks were rapidly falling into decay; and he wished to know whether the Government were prepared to take any steps to prevent the navigation from continuing in a state which was a reproach to the nation?
COLONEL KNOXsaid, that the locks in certain parts of the river were entirely gone, and if any serious flood took place it was impossible to tell what damage might not be caused to the various properties on its banks. A large portion of the water supply of London came from the works at Teddington, and they were now constantly precluded from working the mills on the banks of the Thames by the want of water. A great waste of water arose from the locks being out of repair and not performing the functions for which they were intended. That great water highway ought no more to be suffered to go into decay than any highway in the country. He made a suggestion last year which he thought worthy the attention of the Government and the House. The locks might easily be kept in good repair by means of a very infinitesimal rate, the fractional part of a penny in the pound, upon the property in the counties through which the river passed; and if the Government would bring in a Bill with that object he was sure it would meet with the approbation of all those counties, for it was essential to the water carriage of their coal, timber, and other materials that the navigation should be maintained. He trusted that if the Government would not take the matter into their own hands they would at least allow a Committee to be appointed to inquire into the subject.
§ MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, that a deputation who had waited upon him at the Board of Trade had stated very much what his hon. and learned Friend had done, and they had informed him that the upper navigation of the Thames from Staines to Lechlade was almost in a hopeless condition, and that it would probably be destroyed unless something was done. He certainly thought that the navigation of the Thames was a very important matter, and that if it were possible it ought to be maintained, but it ought to be maintained like other navigations—namely, by the proceeds from the traffic. His hon. and learned Friend had stated that the railways had interfered with the traffic on 227 the river, and that, in consequence, the income of the Commissioners had been brought down to virtually nothing, and that they were now unable to pay the interest on the money borrowed. But he would ask whether any steps had been taken for the purpose of enabling the river navigation competing with the railways? He believed that nothing had been done. The tolls now charged were of the same amount as of old, tolls too high to allow the traffic to increase and give a chance to a canal or river to compete with a railway. He believed that on the lower part of the river—from Staines to London—which was under the control of the Thames Conservancy Board—a very material reduction in the tolls had been made, and that the consequence was an increase in the tonnage over that carried before the construction of the railway. The Commissioners, in their petition, stated that if the works necessary were executed, the tolls which would be received would be amply sufficient to maintain the works and leave a surplus. No doubt the situation of the Commissioners was a very difficult one, and they could do nothing without the assistance of Parliament. They must come to terms with the old lock-owners, and they must make better arrangements in the management of the river. The Government would agree to the appointment of a Committee, who should inquire into the condition of the navigation of the river, and see whether any measures could be devised by Parliament to enable the navigation to be self-supporting. Nobody could tell what the produce of the tolls would be when some new system were adopted. He could not say that this Committee was to have the power of recommending that the navigation should be maintained at the public expense; but if it could be shown that there would be a fair and proper security for advancing money in a mode similar to that adopted in connection with public works, why of course that would be a different matter. He wished it to be distinctly understood that the Government would not consent to the appointment of the Committee with any understanding that there might be a recommendation that the river should be a public burden. He was sorry to say that he had been informed by competent engineers that the original construction of the locks was defective. They were so shallow that they would not admit barges 228 passing through drawing a sufficient depth, that was, barges suited to carry cargo sufficient to be profitable. That was an unfortunate state of things. It was something beyond the mere question of keeping the locks in repair. However, as he had said before, the Government had no objection to the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he was glad to hear that the Government were willing to accede to an inquiry, but thought it would be better that it should be conducted by a small Commission instead of by a Committee of that House. Such a Commission, with proper scientific aid, would obtain for them more valuable information than they could hope to get by a Committee, before which, he feared, they would only have persons bringing up a crowd of witnesses from Reading, Oxford, Wallingford, Merton, and other places on the river, all intent on establishing a case for their own particular localities. Full information on the whole subject was indispensable before they could have any sound legislation on that matter. A Commission would also be less expensive than a Committee. When they looked at the Thames in its course from Lechlade to the Thames Conservancy it would be seen that there were parts of the river which might be maintained as a navigation, and other parts which ought to be given up. Then there were conflicting interests, such as the old locks, the Commissioners locks, and the mills, to be considered. He believed that a Royal Commission, small in number, containing a due scientific element, would obtain a mass of information which would enable the House and the Government to come to a sounder conclusion than a Committee of that House, which must call before it a crowd of witnesses from the respective localities. He agreed with the President of the Board of Trade that the present was not a case for aid by public money. The navigation ought either to be self-supporting or ought to be abandoned, but if these interests were not to be kept up it became a question how they were to be let down. These works were maintained under Parliamentary sanction. All the magistrates of all the counties through which the river ran were, he believed, Commissioners, and they formed together a body as numerous, he supposed, as that House itself. The river was divided into districts, and now that the Commissioners had got no money the works were going to wreck and ruin. 229 Something must be done, and the Government might fairly be called upon to ascertain the facts by inquiry. If they would see the way to a remedy they would not only confer a great benefit on the public, but obtain a great deal of credit for themselves. He must, however, protest against the suggestion thrown out by an hon. Member of levying a penny in the pound on the counties for the maintenance of the navigation. The only effect would be to give a bonus to canal navigation against the railways. He believed that the transit from Oxford to London by this navigation occupied some six weeks, and even more, in the summer months, and that the cost was two or three times as much as was charged by the railways, which did the work in twenty-four hours. There were, however, parts of the Thames not near to railways where there was a heavy timber and coal traffic, and here the river navigation might be profitably kept up. If a Select Committee were appointed they must summon witnesses before them, and the expense of these witnesses would be paid by the public. The Commissioners, on the other hand, would go into the various localities, and would obtain the necessary information a great deal better and more cheaply.
§ MR. LOCKEsaid, that as one of the Commissioners, he concurred in the opinion that a Royal Commission was far preferable to a Select Committee, because it would be absolutely necessary to go into the districts and to see the locks and weirs in order to enable them to give an opinion that might be relied upon. He was told that the navigation from the Severn to the Thames was in such a state that the tolls alone between Bristol and London amounted to more money than the whole charge for the same goods by railway. If so, it was by no means extraordinary that the goods traffic on the Thames should be so much diminished. If locks fit for these barges were made, it would be still doubtful whether the river navigation could compete with the railways. If they could not, who was to pay for the works, and would it not be necessary that the counties should have a rate levied upon them? They were all agreed upon one thing, that the river must remain navigable and that the banks must be kept up. The question of the pollution of the river deserved attention in connection with this subject. If a Board composed of a smaller number were to be set up in the place of the present 800 Com- 230 missioners, its duty might be more clearly defined, and some regulations must be laid down for preventing the discharge of the sewage of towns into the river. That was as important a matter as the repair of the weirs. The whole question ought to be referred to the Commissioners, who should inquire and report the names of the towns and places the sewage of which now polluted the stream above Staines. The Thames Conservancy had recently been most advantageously remodelled upon the recommendation of a Committee of that House. They obtained an injunction to prevent the discharge of the sewage of the town of Kingston into the Thames. The sewage works were consequently stopped, and the question would shortly be argued before Vice Chancellor Sir Page Wood. If the learned Judge should declare the emptying of the sewage of Kingston into the Thames to be illegal, a first and important step would be taken for the purification of the river.
§ MR. NEATEsaid, he was very glad to hear that the Government recognized the great importance of this subject. It was, indeed, a branch of one of the most important questions that could be brought under their consideration. The Thames Commissioners were not a trading body, but they had discharged the duty cast on them, so long as they had the means, to the best of their power. When their revenue was taken from them, they were wholly unable to discharge that duty. Their revenue had been taken by the effect of past legislation. There ought to be an inquiry either by a Committee or a Commission. He did not think they would be able to dispose of the whole question without a Commission; but it might be very desirable to begin with a Committee, as the House already possessed a considerable amount of information on the subject. The most important and pressing point was to vote some money. They could very soon come to a Resolution on that subject. They wanted a considerable sum, and the body had undoubted claims on the public. They wanted an advance of money, not as a gift but by way of loan, and they would be able to offer for it very reasonable security. He thought the appointment of a Committee would be the best mode of dealing with the subject in the first instance.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that as representing one of the towns (Reading) immediately interested in this question, he 231 wished to say a very few words upon it. The case, he thought, was very analogous to that of bankrupt turnpike trusts, which often came before the House. No doubt it involved a great many important questions. It was not only a question of traffic, but of the health of many of the towns on the banks of the Thames. He believed the traffic would be found to pay if the tolls were diminished. He had been informed that a part of the town of Reading was likely to be flooded if the locks were suffered to pass into decay. He trusted something would be done in this matter even during the present Session.
§ MR. WALPOLEsaid, he was not connected with any of the towns on the banks of the Thames, but as a member of the great community here, he could not but feel a deep interest in this question. It was, as stated by the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Neate), a branch of the greatest question that could occupy the attention of the House in a social point of view. He could not compare it to the case of a bankrupt turnpike trust, because the burden of maintaining the highways had been thrown on parishes. He agreed with his right hon. Friend (Mr. Henley) that it would be hardly, just to throw on the county rate the duty of keeping up the highway of the Thames. It was not the inhabitants of the county that benefited. The whole of the inhabitants of England benefited by the keeping up the highway of the Thames. The navigation of the Thames was only one part of the question. It was a very important part; but so long as there were railways it would be found impossible to compete with the quicker mode of transit, except for heavy goods. What had been stated by the hon. and learned Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke) was very important—what was to be done with the drainage which ran into the Thames above the metropolis? Even that was not the only question. He earnestly entreated the Government to consider the necessity of keeping the fullest supply of water they could in great navigable rivers for the use of the community. If they established water companies to supply London and the suburbs, they drew so much water away from the Thames, and were thus constantly diminishing the volume of water. He believed it would be found on inquiry that the effect thus produced on the river within the last twenty-five years had been very material, and if the volume of water was diminished they could not have that re- 232 serve of supply they required for the growing wants of the community. It became, then, a very grave question how the metropolis was to be supplied with water. He thought nothing but a Commission could properly deal with this question. The Commission should be small, consisting of scientific and skilful persons, well acquainted with the subject, who could inquire into the effect of the different works going on, draining, and the abstraction of water, the failure to keep up the weirs and locks; and when that information had been got they would be able to determine what was best to be done.
§ MR. AYRTONsaid, he thought the question was one very easy of solution. In former times the conservancy of the Thames had been intrusted to the Justices of the Peace for the county in Quarter Sessions, but below Staines that duty was intrusted to the City of London. But when the trade and commerce of the City increased to a vast extent, the duty was vested in a Board, which was empowered to keep the river in order from its mouth to Staines. What was required, then, was to make the Board more efficient as regarded that part of the river above Staines. If the Thames Commissioners could not perform their duty the matter should be put into the hands of the justices of the counties through which the river flowed, and they could appoint committees of conservancy to take care of the river, and among other things to see that it was not polluted by sewage from the towns on its banks. Unfortunately, the present Board, in consequence of a decision of the other House last year, had not all the powers with which the House had desired to invest it. The heavy tolls paid on the rivers led to the traffic being transferred to the railways as soon as these were established; but now that the rivers had lost their value for purposes of navigation it was clearly according to the principles of the Constitution to put them back into the hands of the local magistrates, who would form admirable Boards of Conservancy in their several districts. Having the whole of the county funds at their disposal, they could be at no loss for means, while the tolls which were obtained from the river would, of course, be applied in diminution of taxation. There was no great need for inquiry; some practical proposition of the nature he had suggested could easily be worked out, the local magistrates having the example of the metropolis before their eyes, and if ener- 233 getic measures were taken in this direction, the river would soon be in the condition which everybody desired to see. He did not think the view taken by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walpole) was quite accurate. Instead of having drank the Thames dry, the fact that it was lower at some seasons than it used to be was, he believed, attributable to the system of thorough drainage. Instead of rain being absorbed in the soil, and gradually filtering back into the river, it now passed off very rapidly, and there was no longer the same storage of water in the ground to maintain the supply which there used to be in old and exploded systems of farming. Some misapprehension, he thought, existed as to the actual state of the Thames. Some time ago he was talking to a farmer living on the banks of the river, who maintained that the water was not so good for agricultural purposes, and did not fertilize so much as it used to do. His reason was that the moisture, instead of soaking downwards, and carrying with it dust and soil to the river, passed straight down to the drains, and no longer carried with it the same amount of nourishment. The argument might be worth much or little, but anyone looking at the Thames could judge for himself as to the cleanness of the water. He had often been along its banks, and he knew that it was one of the finest and purest rivers flowing in the world. River water had the power of purifying itself to a very great degree, but alarm was created by people calling themselves chymists who got water and kept it in a bottle till it began to smell disagreeably, pursuing with regard to it a course exactly opposed to that of the Thames itself, the waters of which were always running. More mischief was done by a few stagnant ponds here and there along the Thames than by the whole volume of water in the river itself from end to end of its course. It was important to bear these facts in mind, because a great deal of feeling had been excited by the Report of the Royal Commission appointed by the Government. Royal Commissions always started a theory and endeavoured to get up a cry with the object of persuading the country that the Commission ought to be permanent and every one of the Commissioners in receipt of good salaries. Some Royal Commissions had been guilty of most extraordinary proceedings. One which took up the subject of experimental farming, when questioned as to the operations undertaken, 234 admitted that they had been pursued regardless of expense; and he believed the Commissioners were now being sued by the landlords for spoiling the land which they professed to farm. These results were achieved, of course, with the object of instructing the country. The recent outcry about the state of the Thames he believed to be perfectly unfounded, but it was very desirable at the same time that the management of the river should be in good hands.
§ SIR HARRY VERNEYsaid, he must protest against the doctrine laid down by the last speaker that the management and conservancy of the Thames ought to be paid for out of the county funds. There were some counties of which the river only touched the border, and in which the ratepayers consequently could have little interest in the solution of this question compared with residents in the metropolis. He believed that there was no more important question for consideration than the drainage of river basins; and his conviction was that if such basins were properly drained they would be much more fruitful, and that the public health would be promoted. The cost of such works, however, should not fall upon the county rate, but upon the inhabitants of the district drained.