SECOND READING. (Hansard, 5 August 1872)

§ THE MARQUESS OF RIPON
, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that as its details were very generally known, and had been very fully discussed in "another place," he might, on that occasion, confine himself to a brief statement of its provisions. Its great object was the putting an end to separate sanitary authorities in the same community. Whether in towns or in rural districts, it would vest in one single authority the power of carrying out sanitary measures under the existing Acts. It did not increase the sanitary powers under these Acts. Provisions having that object were originally included in the Bill, but owing to the opposition to which they had given rise, the Government were obliged to withdraw them. The Bill would, however, effect the great object of establishing a uniform system of sanitary authority, and providing that there should be only one such authority in each community.

§ EARL FORTESCUE
congratulated the Government on their wise and courageous perseverance, and the opposition on their patriotic co-operation in carrying out four great measures—the two Mines Regulation Bills, the Licensing Bill, and the present Bill. He approved of the present measure as far as it went; but it was only a poor instalment of what was required. For without a consolidation of the confused, and even occasionally conflicting provisions of the numerous sanitary statutes now in force, into one clear and intelligible Act, no sanitary legislation could be thoroughly effective. Still, the advantage of having henceforth only one recognized local sanitary authority in every place, and one central authority in the government for all sanitary purposes, would be very great indeed. Their Lordships must not, however, expect too great results from this measure. They must remember that the Public Health Act of 1848, a far more comprehensive measure, was followed by a very small—indeed, up to 446 the present time, hardly appreciable average diminution of sickness and mortality throughout the kingdom. Not that the millions, well spent on works of sewerage and water supply since 1848, had not done much good in many localities; but, for them, the average mortality would have seriously increased instead of remaining about stationary. But their beneficial influence had been largely counteracted by the constantly increasing tendency to overcrowding in the chief seats of industry and commerce, and by the utterly inadequate protection afforded under a defective legislation to the population employed, even in naturally healthy work, from needless and easily preventible injury. There was in the Public Health Act of 1848 one very useful provision, since repealed, to the principle of which he would earnestly call the attention of the Government, with a view to future legislation—namely, that of requiring the sanction of some competent superior authority to the execution of sanitary works, with borrowed money by any local body. The want of such a control had notoriously already led to much wasteful and inefficient expenditure, and would certainly lead to more. He trusted that the Government would consider the propriety of insisting on the interests of the next generation, being thus protected by preventing money from being borrowed, and uselessly spent in evidently erroneous works, perhaps at the desire of only a small and temporary majority in the local body for one year, while the charge for it extended over a series of years to the detriment of those who had had no voice in the matter. They must not deceive themselves. The tendency of this measure as it stood, while apparently the contrary, would be found in the long run really, though indirectly, centralizing; because so many of the smaller urban and rural local bodies, established as the local authorities under it, would be insignificant and inefficient, that more and more duties and responsibilities must inevitably be given to the central authority. He would, therefore, earnestly press upon the attention of the Government the extreme desirableness of establishing some permanent intermediate authorities for the exercise of an habitual intermediate control over local management and expenditure, between the local units of ad- 447 ministration on the one hand—for which, in rural districts, the Poor Law Unions had been wisely selected by the authors of the present Bill—and the central authority on the other hand, whether of Parliament or of the Executive Government in London. For this, County Boards with a representative character, recommended as they had been by the best men of all political parties, would seem eminently fitted, if the largest towns were each made what some of them had long been—a county of a city—and thus withdrawn from the control of the authorities of the particular county to which, though geographically within it, such large urban communities could hardly, in any reasonable sense, be said to belong. Such an intermediate provincial or county control would be useful in various other besides sanitary matters. The Endowed School Commissioners had recommended its adoption in the case of endowed schools. In his (Earl Fortescue's) opinion, it afforded the only effectual safeguard against local mismanagement on the one hand, and enervating centralization on the other. The interest which, for nearly 30 years, he had taken in sanitary reform, and the fact that he had been associated with his lamented Friend (Lord Carlisle) in bringing in the Public Health Act of 1848, must plead his excuse for now troubling their Lordships at such length.

§ LORD REDESDALE
complained that a Bill of such moment should have been brought up at such a late period of the Session.