§ MR. CREMERI beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the New River Company are demanding from persons whom they supply with water a quarter's water rate in advance, and that this demand is made even upon persons who have regularly paid their rates for 20 or more years; if he can state the amount which is thus being added to the capital of the Company; and, if the action of the Company is strictly legal, whether the Government on the grounds of equity will consider the necessity of introducing a Bill or taking any other steps to compel any Water Company which exacts such advanced payments to pay to every person from whom they thus obtain deposits a fair rate of interest for the deposits which they are compelled to make?
§ *MR. RITCHIESection 70 of the Waterworks Clauses Act, 1847, which is incorporated with the New River Company's Act, 1852, provides that water rates shall be paid in advance by equal quarterly payments. The section has almost invariably been incorporated with Local Acts or Provisional Orders, by which Local Authorities or Water Companics have been authorised since 1847 to make charges for the water supplied by them. It is also incorporated with the Public Health Act, 1875, and therefore applies to cases where water is supplied by Sanitary Authorities under the general law. The effect of the payment of the water rates quarterly in advance cannot be to add to the capital of the company, as the water rates are applicable as revenue. The right to claim payment in advance 1128 must be presumed to have been considered when the water rates were granted, and I cannot give any undertaking to propose the legislation suggested, which would affect the statutory rights of the great majority of Corporations, Sanitary Authorities, and Companies who supply water for domestic purposes.
§ MR. CREMERIs it contemplated by the Acts to which the right hon. Gentleman refers that householders of 20 and 30 years' standing, who have never been defaulters, should at the end of that time have a quarter's rate demanded in advance?
§ *MR. RITCHIEI do not understand the meaning of the expression "at the end of that time." Undoubtedly, the Acts in question do entitle the companies to charge a quarter in advance.
§ MR. CREMERIn many instances a demand has now for the first time been made upon householders of 20 and 30 years' standing, without being defaulters, for a quarter's rate in advance.
§ *MR. RITCHIEI have no information on the point why the companies should now avail themselves of their powers under the Acts for the first time, but undoubtedly they possess a power to demand a quarter's rate; in advance.