SECOND READING. (Hansard, 16 May 1865)

LORD RAVENS WORTH
, in moving the second reading of the Bill, said, he hoped their Lordships would extend to him their indulgence while he briefly explained its object and the circumstances under which he had been induced to take charge of the measure. The Bill had been introduced into the other House of Parliament in conjunction with another entitled the River Waters Protection Bill—the two Bilk having kindred objects, were brought in at the same time by the noble Lord the Member for Huntingdonshire (Lord Robert Montagu). Very powerful argu- 375 ments were used to induce the House of Commons to accept these two measures; but, owing to difficulties inter posed, the latter Bill had been withdrawn, and the present Bill was allowed to pass unopposed. Although the River Waters Protection Bill did not accompany this measure, yet the two Bills were so intimately connected and the facts by which both were supported so strong that it would be necessary to refer to them in order to lay the foundation for the enactment of the present measure. It was an indisputable fact that the pollution of rivers was increasing with the increase of population and manufactories, and the evil had now attained a most serious magnitude. In proof of this he might refer to the memorials addressed in March last year to the First Lord of the Treasury by three noble Lords—the Earl of Shaftesbury and Lords Ebury and Llanover—respecting the sanitary condition of rivers and streams. It was there stated that the increasing pollution of rivers and streams had become a matter of national importance, which urgently demanded the immediate attention of the Legislature; that the discharge of sewage and the refuse of factories into rivers was a source of increasing danger to the public health and that the evil had been aggravated by the unprecedented drought of the last summer which had dried up the natural wells over a large space. It was stated in the Report of the Sewage Commission of 1861 that no fewer than 100 towns were in this lamentable condition owing to the pollution of their streams. But he need not go far to show to their Lordships the evils of this pollution, for it was to be seen in the condition of the river which flowed under the very walls of Parliament. Most of the water with which London was supplied was taken from the river, and the companies which supplied it had recently been compelled to take their supplies from above Teddington Locks, where the water was comparatively pure; but it had been given in evidence that the Thames above that point received the sewage of fifty towns, and at this moment the inhabitants of London were drinking water infected by the sew age of 800,000 persons. It had been abundantly proved that the filtration by which it had been attempted to render the water fit for use did not remove the matter held in solution. Into that noble river the Imperial Gas Company proposed, by a Bill now before their Lordships' House, 376 to throw the residuum of their works, extended over a vast area. They sought powers to increase their capital by £1,200,000, their borrowing powers by £400,000, and the acreage covered by their works by 100 acres. The nuisance which would thus be created had been ex posed the other evening by the right rev. Bishop of the diocese, and he earnestly hoped that, either by a vote of that House, or by the decision of a Committee upstairs, some effectual check would be interposed to the pestiferous attempts of this Company still further to corrupt the Thames by pouring into it their refuse and impurities. The Clyde, the great arterial river of the West of Scotland, was represented in the Report of the Sewage Commissioners as being in even a worse condition than the Thames. York, Manchester, Leeds, and Nottingham were all suffering alike from the same cause. Professor Acland, of the University of Oxford, said that the state of the river Thames was a national disgrace, and he described the process of fermentation which took place in its waters. Mr. Rawlinson spoke of the pestilential effluvia to which the inhabitants of Birmingham were exposed from the pollution of the adjacent streams and the discharge into them of large quantities of refuse from various works. The same evils were corrupting the health of all our large towns, and it was no wonder that the in habitants prayed for some amelioration of the evil. Such impurities destroyed the fish in our rivers; and just as the mephitic air in a well or mine, which would extinguish a lighted candle, was fatal to human life, so the destruction of fish in a stream proved that its condition was deleterious to human life. He hoped he had said sufficient to induce their Lordships to give a favourable consideration to this Bill, inasmuch as it was likely to remedy, to a great extent, the evils he had de scribed, while, at the same time, it utilized the sewage, which was their cause. It was merely a permissive Bill, enabling the local authorities of towns and parishes to take such steps as they might deem expedient for distributing over the land the sewage of their respective districts which had hitherto found its way into their watercourses and streams. The Bill would interfere with no existing rights, and give no compulsory powers. If their Lordships assented, as he trusted they would readily do, to its principle, any objections which might be urged to its details 377 could be more considered in Committee. The local authorities by whom the measure would be carried out were mentioned in the schedule of the Bill, which contained many references to existing Acts, and particularly to the Public Health Act and the Local Government Act. There could be no question, from the evidence laid before Parliament, as to the beneficial effect of the application of sewage to the land, and especially to grass land. It was instructive to look at the cases of those countries where sewage was husbanded and utilized. In China, with its hundreds of millions of inhabitants, travellers told them that not an atom of refuse was lost, the rivers and streams were kept pure, and the empire was consequently enabled to sustain its immense population by its own produce. The same remarks applied to Japan. But we, on the contrary, who boasted of being the most civilized country ever known, wasted at our own doors that which might enrich our soil, at the same time polluting our rivers and our atmosphere, while we sent whole fleets to the ends of the earth to procure artificial elements of fertilization. We imported enormous quantities of guano; and yet with all that we were not able to feed our people, but had to draw from foreign countries from 14,000,000 to 16,000,000 quarters of wheat and grain annually. Was it not, then, worth while to turn our attention to these facts, and to endeavour to employ with benefit to our selves and relief to the overcrowded parts of the country those advantages and means which were within our reach? Steps had already been taken by the Government, much to their credit, for the purposes of purifying the atmosphere of our towns, and he might, by the way, embrace that opportunity of asking why they had not received the Reports of the Inspectors appointed under the Act relating to that subject, seeing it had been provided that those Reports should be issued in the month of March. But, returning to the Bill which he held in his hand, it was a further step in the same direction, and an endeavour to extend to the purification of rivers that which had already been at tempted for the purification of the atmosphere.

§ LORD REDESDALE
had not the slightest objection to the principle of the Bill, but he thought it was framed in a 378 very imperfect manner, and that the details would require careful consideration.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD
said, the measure was one well deserving the favourable consideration of their Lordships. It was, no doubt, a supplemental Bill to the numerous Local Health Acts that had been passed of late years; but it was a strange thing that Parliament should have left this blank for so long a time as to render it necessary to fill up the void in that imperfect manner. It was a means to a good end—that of agricultural profit and sanitary improvements, and he thought it might be very properly passed by their Lordships.