§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, during the present Session of Parliament, any measure will be introduced which will prevent towns from pouring their sewage into the Thames above the point at which the supply of water to London for drinking purposes is drawn?
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTH (for Mr. ASSHETON CROSS),in reply, said, there was no intention of bringing in any Bill having the special object indicated in the Question, but a Pollution of Rivers Bill was in preparation, as the hon. Baronet and the House were already aware. The Thames Conservancy Act, passed some years ago, provided for the purification of that river, so far as sewage was concerned, by the agency of the Conservators, whose jurisdiction extended up to Cricklade. They had exercised their powers and put pressure on the authorities with useful, though, necessarily, with slow, results, and the Local Government Board had sanctioned the expenditure of large sums of money by the local authorities for the construction of works having for their object the purification of the river. Out of a dozen or fifteen towns between Cricklade and Hampton, the following of the more important cases might be specified:—At Oxford, upwards of £100,000 was being expended; at Abingdon, £20,000; at Reading, £150,000; at Eton, where he believed the works were complete and in operation, £25,000; at Windsor, £30,000. Most of the works in these instances were in a forward state—some, he believed, completed, or approaching completion.