§ MR. W. H. SMITHI wish, Sir, to ask the President of the Local Government Board, If he is aware that in those districts of London supplied by the Grand Junction Company there has been an almost total suspension of the water supply? I wish to inquire also, Whether the Local Government Board are prepared to exercise the authority they possess to make the Grand Junction Company comply with their statutory obligations in respect to water supply?
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKalso asked, Whether the right hon. Gentleman 1270 would, without delay, invite the attention of his Colleagues to the question of the water supply of London, with a view to legislation on the subject at the earliest moment possible next Session?
§ MR. DODSON, in reply, said, his attention had been directed to this matter by the Question of his right hon. Friend (Mr. W. H. Smith), and also by the Question of which the hon. Member for Marylebone (Mr. D. Grant) had given Notice; but he hoped it would not be thought a matter of disrespect either to his right hon. Friend or to the hon. Member for Marylebone, if he added that it had been still more forcibly directed to the matter by a deficiency in the water supply in his (Mr. Dodson's) own house. Information was received by the Local Government Board yesterday of the failure of the high service supply in a house at Brixton, and he immediately directed Colonel Bolton, the Water Examiner attached to the Department over which he presided, to make inquiry into the matter. He had not yet received a Report from that official; but when he did so, he would consider of communicating it to the House, and would also be in a position to state the nature of the proceedings the Government would propose to take. In answer to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck), he had only to say that, in accordance with the recommendations of the Select Committee of last Session, the necessary Notices of a Bill relating to the Water Companies of London had been given early in the Session by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Departpartment; but the Bill itself had not been introduced, because there were large pecuniary interests to be dealt with in the way of purchase and compensation, and it was not deemed advisable to introduce a Bill of the kind without the tolerable certainty of being able to pass it into law in the Session in which it was introduced.