§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
§
*LORD MONKSWELL, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, said: The Bill had been introduced by the President of the Local Government Board to remedy a practical defect in the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act of 1876 owing to the decision of an eminent lawyer, which seemed to show that the Act required amendment. Section 3 made it an offence to cause to fall or flow, or to knowingly permit to fall or flow, into any stream any solid or liquid matter. The section further provided for the case of sewage passing along a channel constructed, or in course of construction, unless the Court were satisfied that the best practical and available means to render such sewage harmless had been used. It was obviously intended that the Act should apply also to sewers which were unconstructed at the date of the passing of the Act. A case occurred under Section 17 of the Public Health Act, which was very much to the same effect as that section, on which it was decided that a Local Authority by merely permitting sewage so to fall or flow did not commit any offence if the Local Authority had done nothing actively to turn sewage into a stream. That decision was remitted to the Law Officers of the Crown, who advised the Local Government Board that it applied to the provisions of
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the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act so that a Sanitary Authority would not be committing an offence against the Act by merely permitting the discharge of sewage into a stream through a sewer (constructed prior to the passing of the Public Health Act of 1875), in which case it had to be shown in addition, in order to constitute an offence, that the Sanitary Authority had done something actively to turn sewage into the stream. This Bill was intended to meet that difficulty. It provided that—
Where any sewage matter falls or flows, or is carried into any stream after passing through or along a channel which is vested in a sanitary authority, the sanitary authority shall, for the purposes of section three of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876, be deemed to knowingly permit the sewage matter so to fall, flow, or be carried.
The effect of it would be that, whore sewage was passed into a stream through any sewer vested in a Sanitary Authority, it would be an offence in that Authority to allow the sewage to continue to be passed into the stream unless the best practical available methods were used to render it harmless. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a." —(The Lord Monkswell.)
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.