LEAVE. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 5 April 1870)

§ MR. STAPLETON,
in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to make better provision respecting the supply of Water to the Metropolis on Sundays, said, that, although this might seem to be a small matter, yet such a measure as he proposed would be a great been to a very large population. It was a practice amongst certain classes to clean their houses on Saturday, and, in this manner, their supply of water was, to a great extent, exhausted; and yet, under the present arrangement, they received no further supply from the company on the following day. A good water supply on Sunday was of great advantage to those persons who wished to attend church decently, and even in the interests of temperance it was desirable; because if people could not get pure water, they sought to make it drinkable by the admixture of spirits, and if they had none, they went to the public-house. Mr. Green, the engineer of the East London Water Company, stated, before 1369 the Committee over which the present Chief Commissioner of Works presided in 1867, that 20 per cent of the houses in the district supplied by his company had nothing but an eighteen-gallon tub for the storage of water, and that many houses had no means whatever of storing water; that many of the water-butts were near water-closets; that the poor stored water by putting it under their beds; that some of them stole water from each other on Sunday. Even if the people could supply themselves with cisterns for storing water, the storing of water in cisterns would be a more fertile source of impurity than any pollution of the river from which it was drawn. A Report of a Royal Commission since that date quoted a Report of the Board of Health made in 1850 to that effect. Having become acquainted with this state of things, he had put himself in communication with the several companies which supply the metropolis with water, and he thought it right to say that they had met him in the fullest and fairest manner. The West Middlesex Water Company informed him that they already supplied water on Sundays to Marylebone and Paddington. They had since given a supply to Kensington, and intended to extend it to Hammersmith. That was satisfactory so far; but as the supply was merely given as a favour at present, it might be withdrawn at any time. At any rate, an Act of Parliament, making it compulsory, would do no injury to their company, and would enable its directors to resist any objections from shareholders; while it would also have the effect of preventing an alteration of the arrangement by any future Board. The Secretary of the Chelsea Waterworks Company stated that they were giving a half supply on Sundays. They put the water on in the poorer districts. It was hardly fair to the public to allow each Board to determine which houses should have water and which should not. The letter from the Grand Junction Waterworks Company was, in effect, much the same as that of the Chelsea Company, stating that they supplied a very considerable quantity of water on Sunday, and were not unwilling to go a good deal further in that direction. Again, the New River Company stated that they supplied 57,000 houses on Sundays, and were willing to supply as many more as was 1370 necessary. In his opinion, it was necessary that they should supply all houses. The East London Company—into whose affairs Mr. Ayrton's Committee inquired—did not give so satisfactory an answer as the West-end Companies, although it was far more important that the people of their district, who were mostly poor, and had much smaller cisterns, should have a Sunday supply. The East London Company rested their opposition to his proposal entirely on one ground. They said that about 40 per cent of their district was supplied on the constant system, and they were prepared to carry out that constant system as soon as the inhabitants made the proper alterations that were required to prevent the enormous waste that would otherwise ensue. They also said the company had always been ready to furnish a Sunday supply when needed in times of epidemic and other special cases. By giving a Sunday supply in times of epidemic the company admitted its necessity, and by withdrawing it at the end of one outbreak of epidemic disease they laid the foundations of another. The company raised no objection to a regular Sunday supply, except that it would retard the extension of the constant supply system—a system good in itself, but difficult of attainment, because involving very considerable expense, to be incurred, not by the persons directly interested only, but by their landlords. The Southwark and Vauxhall Company stated that they supplied the whole of their metropolitan, but not their suburban district. The Lambeth Company answered very much in the same terms as the New River and the Grand Junction Companies. The Kent Company made the objection that a great part of their district was not in the metropolis; but Greenwich and Woolwich might be reckoned within the metropolitan area. He took the metropolitan district as defined by existing legislation, and he proposed that the penalties under his Bill should be the same as those prescribed by an existing Act—namely, £200 for the first offence, and a continuing penalty of £100 per month, to be enforced through the action of the Board of Trade. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.

COLONEL STEPNEY,
in seconding the Motion, said, the water supply both for the better class of houses and for the 1371 worst in the metropolis was deficient at present; and, under ordinary circumstances, water was more likely to be wanted on Sundays than on week-days.

§ DR. BREWER
said, he had for several years investigated the subject, and found the principal difficulty was not to prove that the artizan and labouring classes were not supplied with water on the Sunday, but to determine how the supply could be secured to them consistently with the interests of the various water companies. In the majority of cases the supply at lodging-houses was insufficient to last from Saturday to Monday morning. Having regard to the practice of flushing the sewers, the absence of a supply of water on a hot Sunday had a prejudicial effect on the health of a locality, and to a defective supply of water those epidemics, which from time to time broke out in the metropolis, might be traced.

§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTH
concurred in the object sought by the promoter of this Bill. No doubt the metropolis, as a whole, was still very inadequately supplied with water; and irrespective of all other considerations, a Sunday supply ought to be added to the weekday service. And now one word upon the larger question of a constant, as compared with an intermittent, supply. He had the honour of sitting on a Committee, presided over by the First Commissioner of Works, who was thoroughly conversant with all that could be urged on this very important subject. He would suggest to the Home Secretary to hand over to the First Commissioner of Works the duty of seeing that the metropolis was furnished with a proper water supply, and he had no doubt that right hon. Gentleman would be able to produce a comprehensive scheme. It was a discreditable thing that this metropolis, with its enormous wealth and importance, should be supplied with water in a way far inferior to Glasgow or Manchester. It was true, it was not easy to compel the water companies to afford a constant supply without making householders provide proper taps and adequate means for preventing the enormous waste that would otherwise arise. This, however, was clear, that it was the duty of Parliament to take care that a constant supply of fresh water was within the reach of every occupier in the metropolis. Concurrently with 1372 the Committee of 1867 a Royal Commission sat, which was presided over by the Duke of Richmond, and two very important plans were laid before it, one of them apparently very alarming from its magnitude and costliness. The Royal Commission reported against that scheme on the ground that there was in the valley of the Thames sufficient means, if adequate storage were provided, for greatly increasing the present supply. He wanted to know whether the Government had taken the recommendations of that Commission into their consideration; and, if so, what decision they had arrived at? He had observed, within the last few days, that the Conservancy of the Thames had withdrawn a plan which seemed to have within it the elements of what had been recommended by the Commissioners. If so, a good opportunity appeared to have been lost.

§ MR. CLAY
said, that having been connected with water companies during the greater part of his life, and, having been chairman of two of the principal companies in London, he wished to say a few words on this subject. Some fifteen years ago there was, no doubt, a very deficient Sunday supply in the metropolis; but that was not on account of any indisposition on the part of the water companies to meet the public wants; but in deference to the feeling which it would be recollected prevailed very generally against labour of any kind on the Sunday, and which found a remarkable manifestation in the closing of the Post Offices, both in London and the country, by vote of that House. After that time this feeling diminished so far that the water companies were enabled by degrees to give a Sunday supply. The letters from the officials of the companies, to which his hon. Friend referred, contained in a small compass an account of the position which the water companies occupied with the exception of one, the Kent Water Company. What they stated came to this—that for a long time past the companies had supplied all their poorer districts. The hon. Gentleman had spoken of "the distribution" of water on the Sabbath; but the House should recollect that the companies could not compel the owners of small houses to take their water, and an immense number of the smallest and poorest houses, which would be most benefited by the water 1373 supply, were not tenants of the water companies. Another thing was this, the companies could not make a man enlarge his cistern; all they could do was to fill it, and if the small houses had cisterns large enough there would be no difficulty. For years past it had been the rule to give a water supply on Sunday to those who asked for it, and if anyone wrote to the West Middlesex Company—if that was the one referred to by the hon. Gentleman—or to the Grand Junction, if that was the one, he would have a supply next Sunday. The only persons who had not a Sunday supply were either those who had furnished themselves with capacious cisterns and did not need it, or, a not inconsiderable class, chiefly suburban, who, the House would be surprised to learn, objected to hearing the water fall into their cisterns as an abomination, because they knew it caused work to be done by some on the Sabbath day. He would not object to the first reading of the Bill, nor probably to the second; he would only say that it was spurring a willing horse. The conditions of a satisfactory water supply were simple enough. They were, that the water should be perfectly good and the supply of it sufficient. As to the first of these conditions, the Committee presided over by the right hon. the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton), and the Duke of Richmond's Commission, both admitted that the quality of the water was as good as could be desired, and the sufficiency of the supply was only a question of the largeness of the cisterns, for if large cisterns were provided the companies would fill them. The intermittent had an advantage over the continuous supply. In the course of the year 4,000 or 5,000 accidents occurred through the bursting of mains and pipes. Under the system of cisterns you knew nothing of these accidents; but under the constant supply system the supply must be stopped during the repair of the pipes.

MR. BRUCE
said, there could be no question that the Bill was well worthy of attentive consideration. It was only a contribution towards a larger subject; because any person who had considered the question must see that the time was near at hand when the whole matter must be considered, and when the proposal for giving a regular supply, and compelling every house to receive a 1374 regular supply, must be entertained. His own opinion was that no satisfactory arrangements would be made for a proper supply of water until a better system of local self-government was provided. That appeared to be a necessary condition to secure a sufficient supply, and by that means many towns had already obtained it. All he could say on the part of the Government was, that when his hon. Friend introduced his Bill it should receive their attentive consideration.