HL Deb 12 February 1892 vol 1 cc301-12
VISCOUNT MIDLETON

My Lords, before putting to Her Majesty's Government the question that stands in my name, I am anxious to state shortly the grounds upon which I venture to place that Motion on the Paper. My Lords, my apology must be found, if any apology is needed, first, in the magnitude of the evil with which it deals, and, secondly, in the magnitude of the population who are affected by that evil. As regards the former part of the question it has been computed that there are, at the present moment, within the metropolitan area no less than 700,000 houses; that they are accountable for upwards of a million and a half of chimneys; that 40,000 tons of coal are daily consumed during the cold weather; and that 480 tons of sulphur are daily emitted into the atmosphere. The result is that during the past year, I believe, there were 150 days on which there was more or less fog, as compared with 90 days in the year immediately preceding. Of course the proportion is liable to vary, but I believe there is no question that the London fogs have been steadily increasing. They extend now, not only over the Metropolitan area, which in itself contains a population larger than that of Wales and Ireland added together, but over the whole County of Surrey, and over those parts of the Counties of Buckinghamshire, Sussex, Kent ,and Essex which more immediately adjoin the Metropolis. The fog has actually been traced as far as Drop-more, near Maidenhead,in Buckinghamshire; all over Surrey, even as far as that high land over which the Portsmouth road passes between London and Portsmouth; and a chemical analysis of the deposit upon windows 37 miles, as the crow flies, from Hyde Park Corner, proves that London smoke, in peculiar states of the wind, has been carried thus far. It may also be seen along the whole of the valley through which the Reading and Reigate railway runs by Dorking; and there is every reason to believe that the peculiar state of the atmosphere which prevails from time to time at Brighton is attributable directly to the London fog when the wind is blowing sharply from the north-east. Well, my Lords, so much for the extent of the evil. Now, it is not for want of attention having been called to its existence that measures have not been earlier taken to remedy it As far back as 1881, I think, an exhibition of various smoke-preventing expedients was held at South Kensington; but I am afraid very little was done in consequence of that exhibition. Later on the question has been constantly brought before your Lordships, partly, I believe, at the instance of a society which exists for the better consumption of London smoke, and partly because an almost annual motion has been placed upon the books by a noble Lord opposite with the very best intention of dealing with this nuisance. Now, my Lords, I have said before, and I must repeat again, that I do not believe that any private Member can possibly deal with an evil of this magnitude and requiring so searching an investigation as ought to precede any action being taken; therefore I make no apology at all—although I see the noble Lord has introduced the Bill again this Session— for bringing before your Lordships what seems to me to be the only way in which the question can be effectually dealt with. I pass now from the extent of the evil, and the extent of the population affected, to what has actually been done of late upon the subject. In August last the Congress of Hygiene, in its chemical and meteorological section, dealt very exhaustively indeed with this subject; there was a very long discussion. In December there was a meeting of the Royal Meteorological Society, and a very valuable paper was read before them on this very subject; and I have the authority of their President for saying that, should any such inquiry as I have suggested be instituted, they will render every possible assistance on the subject. It has already been ascertained, beyond any manner of doubt, that the largest amount of the mischief proceeds now distinctly from the smoke issuing from the domestic chimneys. The Meteorological Committee of the Board of Trade some little time ago instituted special enquiries upon this subject, and the result of these enquiries, conducted in various parts of the Metropolis at a distance from each other, was such as to leave no doubt whatsoever that the domestic chimneys were really responsible for nine-tenths, probably for nineteen-twentieths, of all London fog, or, at all events, of all that part of the London fog which consists of smoky particles. Some 30 years ago a measure was passed through both Houses of Parliament which materially diminished the evil arising from chimneys attached to factories or works of a larger character, and the result was that, for some time after that, there was a perceptible decrease in the nuisance. Since then, however, the population of the Metropolis has increased, and is increasing so fast that any good which may have been done in that direction has been far more than neutralised and outweighed by the enormous increase which has taken place in the domestic chimneys of the Metropolis. My Lords, I may be asked whether there is any precedent for a Commission being granted upon any such subject as this. I can reply at once that there is such a precedent, and one that is very much in point. Some 16 or 17 years years ago, when my noble Friend was Secretary of State, a Commission was issued to inquire into the prevalence of noxious gases over a large portion of the industrial centres. Of that Commission a Member of your Lordships' House, Lord Aberdare, was Chairman; two other Members, Lord Egerton and Lord Percy, were also Members of this House. I had myself the honour of serving upon it; and we were assisted in our investigations by men so competent as Sir Frederick Abel, Sir Henry Roscoe, and Professor Williamson. We spent two years in investigating the odours at the fountain head; we had to go almost all over England in so doing; and we drew up what we thought was a very satisfactory Report. Of course, coal smoke—black smoke—was excluded from our investigations, because it was not part of the subject referred to us; but when we came to deal with the gases originated by coke ovens we were on a subject very nearly allied to it; and we came to an unanimous conclusion that coke ovens, if constructed in the best practical method, would virtually be no nuisance whatsoever to the public in general. We had an opportunity of seeing some of the largest and best conducted works, where the ovens were constructed in the proper manner with a tall stack at the end towering high into the air, and you could only see by the slight vapour that lingered round the mouth of the shaft that anything objectionable was going on within; and in the neighbourhood of those works the vegetation was entirely unaffected by the manufacturing operations which were carried on. We saw works, of course, of a very different character; but we came to the conclusion that a comparatively moderate expenditure, if enforced by Parliament, would convert the worst works into the state in which we found the best: that it was only necessary to abolish the old beehive ovens and adopt the different method of construction, the expense of which would not have told very materially upon any works which ought to have been permitted to continue in existence. At that time my noble Friend, Lord Basing, was head of the Local Government Board, and he introduced a Bill which, if it had passed into law, would have completely cured the whole evil so far as the coke ovens were concerned; therefore it was perfectly practicable to deal with it. Unfortunately, there was a pressure of other matters, and that Bill never became an Act. Still more unfortunately, there was, shortly afterwards, a change of Government, and the result was that about a year later what was simply an emasculated edition of my noble Friend's Bill was introduced into this House. I myself, personally, endeavoured by an Amendment to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission, but I was not successful; and the result is that the Act was passed in a most imperfect state, and, so far as I have been able to learn, has remained a dead letter ever since. I hope that is a part of the precedent which may not be followed upon the present occasion, but that, if Her Majesty's Government should see their way to grant a Royal Commission, they will also see their way to follow up any recommendations which it may make by wise and effective legislation. Another question, my Lords, that may fairly be asked is whether there are any known remedies by which this evil can be met? Well, so far as one can ascertain, without a much more searching investigation than any private individual can give to it, there are not one, but several. In the first place, it has been proposed I believe by a deputation which recently waited upon the Lord Mayor, that anthracite coal should be burnt very largely in London. That is absolutely smokeless, and it is also consumed at some of the largest public establishments, including South Kensington Museum, the School of Arts, St. Thomas's Hospital, and various other institutions. It burns brightly, it can be burnt in grates constructed even as the present grates are, and the supply of it is practically illimitable. At present it finds its market mainly abroad; it is used extensively in foreign capitals; but a very small portion of the whole output now finds its way to London, although London is of course much nearer to the coal fields than any of the foreign capitals can be. Those of your Lordships who know Wales will understand me when I say that as soon as you leave Monmouthshire, where the coal is essentially bituminous, you get at Cardiff to a part of the world in which it is much less so, and when you get into Glamorganshire and Caermarthenshire you are in the heart of the anthracite colleries, where, I am informed, the supply is practically illimitable. Well, that would be one expedient. Another expedient which has been brought to my notice is the adaptation, by a scientific process, of the present grates to consume their own smoke. I am assured that that can be done without any very great difficulty and at a moderate expense. There is a third proposal in which, by the introduction of some chemical apparatus into the chimney, it is possible to consume the smoke as it passes up the chimney, or rather to render it perfectly innocuous. I merely mention these things, not that I personally have any reason to believe in one more than another, but because various expedients have been proposed, and I venture to think that the time is now ripe when those expedients should be properly weighed, and when some conclusion should be arrived at. And my Lords, what are the evils with which we have to deal? There is no difficulty whatever in procuring evidence about them. Anybody in London, during Christmas week of last year, would have been sensible of what a London fog is capable of when it really means business; but, if actual statistical evidence is required, you can obtain from the Commissioner of Police what is the extra cost incurred by the extra police who have to be placed on duty on all such occasions. You can ascertain from the county coroners what is the actual loss of life which has taken place in consequence of these fogs (I am told that no less than 16 people lost their lives in one of the docks of London in one evening alone in consequence of one of those terrible fogs in Christmas week); you can ascertain from the Registrar General how far the mortality shows an instantaneous upward tendency when one of these desperate fogs occur, and particularly when it lasts for more than one or two days. There are ample materials from which information can be obtained, not only as to the means by which fogs might possibly be prevented, but as to the extent of the mischief which a London fog does. Then, as regards the population, to which I have already alluded, you have simply to look at the Returns of the last Census to see how many are affected by it. Those of us who travel constantly on the southern lines know that we now meet the London fog four or five miles further down than we used to do ten years ago on our way to London. Those of us who know anything of the district immediately surrounding London know that within six miles of London there were flowers and plants which it was possible to cultivate with perfect ease only ten or fifteen years ago, and which it is now impossible, in consequence of the state of the atmosphere, ever to bring to maturity. Those are palpable facts More may be had if a proper inquiry is made. I do not think that such an inquiry would need to be very protracted, or very expensive; the whole of the evidence would be immediately upon the spot—a large Commission would not be necessary. What would be necessary would be that certain experts should be placed upon it who could bring out all the facts of the evidence and tabulate them in such a way that reasonable conclusions might be framed upon them. In the last 17 years which have elapsed since the appointment of the Noxious Gases Commission, science has done a great deal in the direction of mitigating evils of this class, and one hopeful sign which we had, even then, was that whenever the Legislature, acting judiciously, had put its foot down firmly and said "this thing should not be," it always happened that science found some way out of the difficulty which enabled the wishes of the legislature to be carried out without any serious injury to manufacture, and with enormous benefit to the rest of the population. The evil is great undoubtedly, but so also would be the effects of any sensible remedy which could be applied; and I think that at all events, before sitting down and saying that London fog is a thing that cannot be conquered and must be endured, we should at least take the step of seeing whether it is not within some control at our hands if we adopt the proper means and the proper expedients. There is one distinguished scientist, I think he is a Scotch Professor, who has devoted several years of his life to the special investigation of what the properties and constituents of London fog are, and he has come, I understand, to very definite conclusions upon the subject— conclusions which I have no doubt he would be prepared to submit to any Commission properly appointed. I cannot believe that any Bill proceeding from any private Member, however well he may be acquainted with the subject, can possibly deal with a question so far reaching in its immediate effect and in its future consequences; but I do venture to think (speaking far more in the interests of the poor and needy than in those of Members of your Lordships' House, or what may be called the more well-to-do classes of the community) that some effort should be made to grapple with this terrible nuisance. To Members of your Lordships' House, or to persons who are so situated that they can leave London if they find it disagreeable, it is possible to fly from the evil; but nine-tenths of the whole population within the Metropolitan area must stay, whether they like it or not. To many of them it means the cutting off of their daily bread, and that sometimes for days, though not, I am thankful to say, for weeks together; to many more (and particularly to women) it means the carrying on of their avocacations under circumstances of the greatest personal peril, and the greatest risk to their lives and health. In all cases it means a steady sapping of the vital energies which, if not apparent at the time, is quite certain to make itself felt within a not very distant period. I say nothing of the enormous waste of fuel thus poured up into the air out of our chimneys, which ought to be consumed below and give out its heat; I say nothing of the enormous expense which is occasioned by the deterioration of furniture, of pictures, of every article of domestic economy and domestic luxury which comes within the influence of this all-pervading plague; I say nothing of the actual expense to which the community is put by the precautions which have to be taken on the recurrence of every fog, or of the enormously increased consumption of gas which takes place even when that fog lasts only a few hours, meaning to houses of business, and to the poorer classes, a very serious addition to their annual outgoings. It is on behalf of those who cannot plead for themselves in this matter that I hope Her Majesty's Government will be induced to institute a full and searching inquiry into the whole question, and that not until the results of the inquiry are before your Lordships' House and before the public, will they despair of being in one way or another able to deal with the matter which so largely affects the comfort and health and the lives of the whole of the population within the Metropolitan area. My Lords, I now venture to put to Her Majesty's Government the Question that stands in my name:—To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are prepared to issue a Royal Commission to inquire into the causes of the prevalence of fogs in London; to ascertain how far, and by what means, they are preventible; and to make such recommendation as, after inquiry, they may deem advisable.

THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY)

My Lords, I have been unable to discover to what Department of Her Majesty's Government the question of London fog belongs, and, having failed to ascertain the right man to answer my noble Friend, I am compelled to do it myself. I am told the London County Council are the people to answer, but I do not see them opposite, and therefore I am afraid I must undertake the duty on their behalf. My Lords, nobody, I think, will differ from my noble Friend in the invective which he has delivered against the London fog; I think he will carry the universal opinion of both Houses of Parliament and of all the inhabitants of the Metropolis with him in the strong feelings to which he has given expression. But, of course, there is a long distance between recognising the existence of an evil and believing that a remedy is easily to be found; and I think, before you go into the question of remedies for the London fog, you should ask yourselves precisely what it is that you hope to remedy. I apprehend that it would be much more accurate to say that what we can remedy is the colour of the fog; but I never heard of anybody who proposed a remedy for the London fog itself. The London fog comes, in the first place, from the Essex marshes, and, probably, beyond that, from the sea, and you might as well propose a remedy for the East wind, as propose a remedy for the London fog in its natural condition. That circumstance disposes of some of the arguments which, with considerable pathos and eloquence, my noble Friend advanced; because its power of interfering with the avocations of daily life is derived quite as much from its existence as a fog as from the particular colour which it assumes. The worst fog I ever saw was about four years ago, when you actually could not see your own boots when you were walking on the parade—it was absolutely white. A fog of that kind will go on as long as the Essex marshes and the North Sea exist. The question, of course, of the colour is another matter; that is, no doubt, one of the advantages which our advanced civilisation has acquired; and I quite agree with my noble Friend that there probably there are certain remedies. If you are willing to use a very drastic course of legislation, and if your administrative machinery is sufficiently vigorous to carry it out, you might make a considerable impression upon the colour of the fog. By far the most effectual remedy ever heard of was, I think, originally suggested by Professor Frankland, that everybody should be forbidden from using any other coal in London except anthracite coal. I do not know whether my noble Friend thinks he would ever get Parliament to pass such a measure as that, or whether he would get the English people to obey it if it were passed. But, of course, the immediate result of that would be enormously to increase the price of that coal, and, consequently, the price of living to the whole population; and he would likewise condemn the population to go for ever, so far as they remained in London, without ever seeing a fire with a flame in it; and I do not think that, for the sake of avoiding an occasional inconvenience, grave as it is, for a certain number of days in the winter, people would condemn themselves to a flameless fire all the winter through. That is a great difficulty which attaches to remedies of this kind. I believe that there is not very much to ascertain in respect either to the nature of the fog or the remedies for its colour which might be proposed. The difficulty is political— that you would require, on the part (I think my noble Friend told us), of the owners of 1,500,000 chimneys an amount of self-sacrifice which you do not get out of the people of a free country. You would require an extension of your inspectoral system which would frighten the most enthusiastic advocate of modern legislation. Conceive of an inspector going to every house in London and seeing that the grate was properly fitted in order not to emit smoke! The burden of itself would be worse than the London fog. Well then, my noble Friend says, but why not inquire into these matters, and that we should not sit down and say it is impossible until we have inquired. He was candid enough to tell us that a much simpler matter, namely, the prevention of chemical odours, was subjected to remedies proposed by a Commission, and that the result was,even in his eyes, not wholly satisfactory. There happened, what I imagine often does happen with a Royal Commission in this country: they make a laborious, ample, and perfect investigation, and a most voluminous and interesting Report (which nobody reads), and then an Act of Parliament, which is brought in with a great flourish of trumpets and which disappears in the sands of July; and finally, after two or three efforts to pass an effectual Act of Parliament, the character of everybody is satisfied by passing some Act of Parliament which should have professedly the same object, but which, as my noble Friend testified was the case in the present instance, turns out to be a wholly dead letter. I am afraid those are the results of attempting things which are beyond the power of a constitutional Government and Parliament to effect; and, therefore, I am loth to consent to undertake the responsibility of issuing a Commission. If a Government has to issue a Commission they have to find gentlemen to act upon that Commission; and I assure my noble Friend that that is no easy task. If you cannot hold out to them any prospect that some great public service will be the result of their devotion, you will not persuade the competent men, who are not very numerous, to undertake the duty of a Commission. You may issue a Commission with men who are not competent; but the result will be very unsatisfactory, even in the first instance. I should prefer to recommend to my noble Friend a simpler mechanism, which will be in his own hand to work, and which, I believe, will effect, quite as much as a Commission, the ascertainment of any facts which have to be ascertained. If he will move for a Committee of this House to investigate the question, Her Majesty's Government will gladly support that Motion. We will not undertake to find the members of that Committee, but that, no doubt, my noble Friend will do himself; he will be the Chairman of the Committee; he will be able to direct its investigations; and he will be able to reap that rich harvest of knowledge, of policy, and of public service which he foresees for anyone who is able to cope with this evil. I think it is rather a matter for the simpler machinery of that kind than for the efforts of a Royal Commission. I fear that if we applied the machinery of a Royal Commission to it we should raise hopes which would not be gratified; we should inspire fears which are not reasonable; and we should diminish the available number of competent men for other more promising fields of investigation to whom it is necessary for such purposes to appeal. I therefore am afraid that I cannot assent to the proposal of my noble Friend that there should be a Royal Commission, but I should be ready heartily to support the appointment of a Committee.

House adjourned at Five o'clock to Monday next.