§ MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)asked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether his attention has been drawn to the Report for the past year of Mr. F. M. Corner, Medical Officer to the Poplar Board of Works, in which the following passage occurs:—
A greater scandal cannot well be shown in matters vital to health than that, in spite of abundant evidence of the magnitude of the evil, thousands and tens of thousands of families living in houses, the rates of which are payable by the landlords, may at any moment, without a particle of fault of their own, be suddenly denied one of the first necessaries of life, water, through the neglect or wilfulness of others. That disease and death are directly traceable to this want no one acquainted with sanitary work in London can doubt. Take this instance: water cut off, drains stopped, opening up of ground and drains, removal of filth accumulation, horrid stench, diphtheria, death. Should the tenant justly refuse to pay the rent, the water supply being included in the charge, the Law allows of the broker being put in, as was done in Cotton Street in 1885, when the goods of a widow were seized until the whole was paid, although the house had been without water for six weeks. In Hanbury Place, having six houses, there was no water supply for twenty-six days, and families numbering each seven, nine, two of six, and others, had to exist, in May 1885, with choked drains, yard flooded with sewage, and no water, and all be- 1257 cause of non-payment of rates by their landlord. In another case there was no water for seventeen days. In a third, from Nos. 2 to 10, Galbraith Street, with a population of seventy-four, there was no water supply from the same cause for fourteen days;and, whether, in the paramount interest of the health of the people, the Local Government Board will, pending legislation, make representations to the Water Companies, or take such other steps as may be necessary, with a view to prevent the recurrence of the condition of things here described?
§ THE PRESIDENT (Mr. RITCHIE) (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)The Report of the Medical Officer to the Poplar Board of Works calls attention to a condition of things which undoubtedly urgently calls for remedy. The House will recollect that in 1884 Lord Camperdown carried through the House of Lords a Bill which would have altogether taken away from the Companies the power of cutting off the water from tenements such as those alluded to in the Question. This Bill passed its second reading in this House, but, unfortunately, did not get through its remaining stages. In the opinion of the Government the power of cutting off the water from such tenements, entailing as it may do very serious consequences to the health, not only of the persons immediately affected, but also of the whole district, ought to be abolished. The hon. Member is aware that the Government have no control over the Water Companies in this matter at present; but I earnestly hope the Water Companies will take care that the powers which they possess by law are not exercised in such a way as would be detrimental to the community and extremely hard upon the tenants. I propose to send to the various Companies a copy of the Question of the hon. Member containing the extract from Mr. Corner's Report, and to ask them to give it their consideration.