HL Deb 26 May 1937 vol 105 cc235-55

THE EARL OF DUDLEY had given Notice that he would draw attention to the need for a Governmental public inquiry into the condition of the River Thames in London and into the proposal to build a barrage at Woolwich; and move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the proposal which is embodied in the Motion standing in my name on the Paper to-day is not by any means a new one; it is that of a Thames barrage, and your Lordships will have heard it often before. Nevertheless, nothing whatever has been done, throughout the several decades which have elapsed since the scheme was first mooted, to give it that real examination by the highest authority which I submit it deserves. During recent years the scheme has been sponsored and ventilated by a body known as the Thames Barrage Association, consisting of many prominent experts in various spheres and supported by many well-known public bodies: councils, transport organisations and chambers of commerce. Yet so powerful are the vested interests of the Port of London Authority, who are opposed to this scheme, that no headway whatever has been made towards the establishment of the public inquiry which is all that is being asked for—I ask your Lordships to note that very carefully—to examine the proposals of this scheme, which prima facie, by general consent, appear to offer very great advantages.

I do not know whether many of your Lordships realise, when you take tea on the terrace of these historic buildings and gaze at low tide over the miles and miles of ugly and insanitary mud flats stretching away on both banks of the river, that by putting into effect a comparatively simple and inexpensive scheme they could be done away with for all time, to the great advantage of public health, of public safety, of public convenience, of shipping and commerce, as well as of æsthetic considerations. The Thames Barrage Association's project, which is admittedly only an outline scheme, but one sufficiently well considered and drafted to stand the microscopic examination of a public inquiry, is to dam the Thames at Woolwich, so as to remove the tides entirely from the London reaches. This is to say, make the thirty miles of river from Teddington to Woolwich into a slow moving lake, maintaining a constant water level (about Trinity high water mark) and a constant width from bank to bank. I will not weary your Lordships with the technical details of the dam itself, except to say that it would be 1,500 feet wide, contain six locks of various sizes for shipping, and also provide a valuable new roadway across the river, which would connect the North and South circular roads, and at the same time effect a juncture between the Southern and Northern railway systems east of the London area. The total cost, including all compensation and auxiliary work, is estimated at only £4,500,000.

The advantages which would be obtained from the dam are so numerous that they would take me, it is no exaggeration to say, most of the afternoon to enumerate, but of the major ones the first is that of obtaining a two-way traffic along the river at all times, instead of only a one-way traffic during a few hours of each tide. I think it is generally agreed that in these modern days a tide is no longer an advantage to shipping, but only a disadvantage and a danger. The consequence of this would be a large increase in river transport, particularly of bulk materials, thereby relieving congestion in street traffic. The next major advantage is one to public health. Your Lordships may not be aware that at present 335,000,000 gallons of only partly treated sewage is ejected into the river every day. Of this 81 per cent. comes from the main sewage works at Barking Creek, of which the outfalls are below the proposed barrage. Most of this filth is now floated back into London on each flood tide, but not carried away to the sea on the ebb tides, and I understand that the ill-effect on public health from this disgusting pollution is fully recognised by the Minister of Health. I believe that there is a scheme under contemplation by the London County Council to take all sewage out of the river into the Channel, at a cost of £62,000,000. If this dam were constructed none of this sewage could enter the tideless lake, and the remaining 19 per cent. of sewage, discharged from up-river works, could be treated under certain regulations which are unenforceable under tidal conditions, and it could be effectively purified in what would then be fresh water.

The next consideration is one of public safety, since fire protection all along the riverside would be greatly improved. Fire floats would not become mud-bound at critical moments, as has happened in the case of at least four major river fires during the last two years. There would also be complete and full security against all floods, which can only be partially secured under tidal conditions. As regards a greater public convenience, a constant access to all wharves, piers and steps would be secured along the sixty miles of river frontage, including entry into the older docks, which can at present only be reached at high tide. Navigation would obviously be enormously simplified with a fixed level instead of a varying one, and the present great danger element would disappear with the rapid tidal currents, as would also the huge damage now being done to bridges, walls arid foundations from tidal scour. The æsthetic considerations I have already touched upon, and can easily leave to your Lordships' imaginations.

These are only a few of the advantages. There are many more with which I will not weary you, which would bring in their trail great direct economies in such matters as dredging, handling of fuel, goods and so on, estimated at at least £600,000 a year, and would also bring increased prosperity to London. I know of no single disadvantage, with the exception perhaps of the temporary inconvenience to a few ships whose top hamper only allows them to go under the bridges at the lower tides. That such an eminent dam builder as Sir Murdoch Macdonald supports the project is an earnest of the fact that there can be no serious technical difficulties as regards the dam itself.

I will not anticipate the objections which will be put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, the Chairman of the Port of London Authority. I think I am already familiar with most of them, and I have the comfortable feeling that I am standing on a firm foundation, and that there is not a single one of them which cannot be refuted convincingly on logical and technical grounds. I should like to be allowed to express my gratitude to the noble Lord for being in his place to-day, at what I know is considerable inconvenience to himself, and thus enabling me to avoid the necessity of postponing this Motion to another day. But the pith of the Port of London Authority's objection is this—and they admit it themselves—that such an inquiry as we are asking for might, and indeed would, investigate matters under the Port Authority control under the Act of 1908, and they will not brook any interference or suggestions from any outside sources, even from the Government themselves. That is the truth of the matter.

They were granted a complete dictatorship under that Act over the whole of the estuary below Teddington Lock, and no matter how strong public opinion may be in favour of an up-to-date scheme of this sort, which spells improvement and advance, they are able to turn a blind eye to it, refusing even an inquiry into such a constructive suggestion. I cannot possibly see the harm of an inquiry, and I hope the noble Lord will tell us what can possibly be the harm; indeed a great deal of good might come of it. I can only assume, from this pig-headed attitude which they have adopted for so many years, that they are fearful of the neglect and waste of what should be one of the finest waterways in the world which would be brought to light by it. I submit that they have failed so far to carry into effect those improvements which we have witnessed in many other countries in respect of their rivers. I notice that the Port of London Authority issued a book this morning in commemoration of the Coronation, dealing with the river and in it the author says this: What utter estrangement time has brought between London's citizens and London's river. Well, I suggest that if the Port of London Authority would adopt a scheme such as this, the Thames would once again become the playground and the pathway of London's citizens.

I hope that the noble Lord will realise that thousands of London's citizens are waking up to the fact that something must be done about her tideway, and are entering the lists to fight for a sound plan. I do not think he will be able to hold out much longer against the weight of this demand. And if your Lordships get an indication from him this afternoon, as I hope you will, that the Port of London Authority themselves propose to hold an inquiry into this scheme at no distant date, the result of which would be publicly reported, then the Thames Barrage Association would, of course, regard a governmental inquiry as unnecessary, and I should be very pleased indeed to withdraw this Motion. But, failing that, I suggest most earnestly to the Government that the time has come when, in the national interest, they ought to assert themselves and take action by means of an inquiry in consultation with all the various interests concerned.

I would point out to them that there are at the present moment schemes under consideration by the Ministry of Health, the London County Council, and the Port of London Authority, which total a cost of about £80,000,000 for sewage disposal, cross river traffic, and harbourage. The Thames Barrage Association claims that if all these schemes were put into effect, and the whole of this money spent, there would be a sad lack of co-ordination, many of the advantages which would accrue under the far less costly Woolwich scheme would be lost, and no greater advantages would be gained. An inquiry would co-ordinate all these schemes, link together the over-lapping needs of each public body, and ascertain the soundest and most economic plan. I beg to move for Papers.

LORD JESSEL

My Lords, the noble Earl who has moved this Motion has left me very little to say. I think we are to be congratulated on having heard such an excellent speech, and we can only regret that we do not hear the voice of the noble Earl more often in this House. I want to explain to your Lordships how I came to be interested in this scheme. I was present at a dinner—all good things come from a good dinner!—at the Imperial Industries Club which, as many of your Lordships know, discusses matters affecting trade and commerce, and this subject was discussed there. I felt very much interested, because I thought what a good thing it would be for London if such a great scheme as was foreshadowed in the lecture we heard that night could be brought about. I had seen for myself a similar scheme in existence, because some years ago I went to Boston in the United States and saw the condition of the great river there, the Charles River. What is proposed to be done in London actually exists there, and in the centre of the town, instead of having, as we have in London, ugly mud banks caused by the tides, there is a full river, which provides many amenities for the citizens—yachting clubs and every sort of thing of that kind. And there have been no difficulties in the way at all. Moreover, such schemes have been carried out in other places besides Boston. In the Port of Amsterdam great works of a similar kind have been carried out successfully; the Rhine itself has been canalised for a tremendous portion of its length; and in England we have the standing example of the Manchester Ship Canal.

It seems to me somewhat unfortunate therefore, with all these examples before us, that we cannot get the Port of London Authority to hold a public inquiry into the matter. This question was brought up not very long ago in the House of Commons, and we were informed by the Minister of Transport that the proposal was not sufficiently influentially backed to warrant the cost of a public inquiry. The noble Earl has mentioned the name of Sir Murdoch Macdonald. I can give your Lordships the names of some other persons who are interested in this scheme. I take first the name of Sir Louis Dane. Sir Louis Dane, among the great posts he has held, was formerly Governor of the Punjab, and he was in close contact with the construction of a number of large darns built for irrigation purposes. These dams provide water for an area of over 10,000,000 acres—a surface larger than the entire arable land in this country. Sir Louis has been a close student of traffic conditions in London for many years, and it was because of that as well as his great experience that he has become so interested in, and is now President of, the Thames Barrage Association. Major Beaumont Thomas, formerly a Member of Parliament and a principal in one of the most important engineering firms in this country, is a great supporter. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, a past President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and designer of the new Waterloo Bridge, is also a supporter. Last, but not least, there is Mr. A. P. Herbert, who knows the river from practical experience up and down its waters. I should add that there is also another distinguished Member of the House of Commons, Sir Arnold Wilson, who backs this scheme. I think, with those names before us, there is ample justification for holding an inquiry.

What happened? The Thames Barrage Association, as far as I can make out, asked for an inquiry from the Port of London Authority, but it seems that they only saw the Chief Engineer. That eminent gentleman did not like the scheme. I am also informed, and I believe rightly informed, that many of the members of the Port of London Authority have no knowledge at all that the scheme was brought to the notice of their Board. I should like the noble Lord to tell me whether that is a fact or not: whether the whole of this scheme was brought to the notice of the whole of the members of the Board. If the position is as I have been informed, I must say I do not think that it is quite fair either to members of the Board or to the Thames Barrage Association. It has been remarked by the noble Earl behind me that the Port of London Authority is a law unto itself. The Government have no authority over it. It is comprised, as many of your Lordships know, of twenty-eight members, of whom eighteen are elected by the payers of dues and by those who own the clocks on the river. There is also representation on that Board by the Members of the London County Council and the City Corporation, but they are in a very small minority. Private interests are in a tremendous majority, and it is suggested, very naturally, that many of these private concerns are fearful that this barrage scheme may militate against their commercial interests.

If that is the case, I do not think that is quite a ground for not having an inquiry; and, indeed, if it appears to be true that it is going to hurt them, I am quite sure no one will grudge adequate compensation being given to them for any loss they might possibly incur. I am sure we must all agree that even though it might cause a loss to private interests, those private interests must give way to the greater good of the health of London, of the amenities of London, and the various advantages which have been so eloquently adumbrated by my noble friend behind me. The matter has been so adequately put forward by my noble friend that I have little more to say except that I hope the noble Lord who represents so well the Port of London Authority, which has done such wonderful work for London, will when he comes to reply give us some shadow of hope that he will consent to this request from the Thames Barrage Association and its supporters for a public inquiry, at which all those who are acquainted with the details can give evidence and at which the matter may be properly considered. If not, I hope the Government will step in, and I think, as this subject gets to be better known and its advantages are better recognised, the pressure of public opinion will be so great that it will compel the Government, if the Port of London Authority refuses, to grant and hold the desired inquiry.

LORD RITCHIE OF DUNDEE

My Lords, I would like, before I pass on to the general question, to disabuse the mind of the last speaker of the impression that the members of the Port of London Authority are not conversant with this scheme. They are conversant with the scheme and have been for the last two years. Secondly, I would like to say that I consider the suggestion which he made, that the private interests of the members of the Port of London Authority have led to their opposing this scheme, is a most improper suggestion which has absolutely no foundation in fact. The noble Earl referred to the fact that this proposal of a barrage on the river was no new one. He was not perhaps aware that the first of these proposals goes back, so far as is known to us, to so long ago as 1790. There have been several in more recent times. The noble Lord, Lord Desborough, was I think associated with one of them. Every one of these proposals has either been killed or has died of neglect, and I hope one of these fates awaits this proposal.

As Chairman of the Port of London Authority I am of course interested both in the question of pollution—the condition of the river—and in the proposed barrage. Under the Port of London Act certain duties in relation to the condition of the water were laid upon the Authority. They were to preserve as far as possible the purity of the water. Following out our duties, we have laid down certain standards of purity for all the effluents that are discharged into the river. These standards are rigorously enforced. But there is one authority to which the noble Earl referred which is specifically exempted under the Act—namely, the County Council. We have no control over them. Their outfall stations at Crossness and Barking discharge into the river every day 280,000,000 gallons of sewage effluent. It is not up to our standard by any means. It has been a source of great concern to the Authority for many years past, especially two or three years ago during the period of drought. The County Council are aware of the concern that it gives us, as the Government are also aware.

I do not mention this by way of criticism of the County Council, because I have very great sympathy with them in the problem with which they have to deal; and I am satisfied that the Government, being aware of it, must be giving the matter their most careful consideration; but I mention it because the promoters of this scheme tell us that by their barrage they are going to improve the condition of the water of the river. Now in our opinion exactly the reverse will be the result. But we are not content with our own knowledge and experience; we have fortified ourselves with the best expert advice that we could get, and this is what it comes to. Above the proposed dam at Woolwich the constant high level of the water would result in the backing up of the tributary streams into which much sewage matter is discharged and prevent their free discharge, which at present takes place at low water. This would result in the ponding of water highly polluted with sewage matter and the production of offensive and unhygienic conditions. The sewage storm overflows which discharge untreated sewage into the river would tend to cause pollution and offensive conditions when the benefit which is derived from the tide flushing and scouring this part of the river is withdrawn. That is so far as the water above the dam is concerned. Below the dam there will be gross pollution of the river water of greater intensity than that which at present exists owing to the backing up and the ponding of the sewage discharge of the Barking and Crossness outfalls on the flood tide. It is in this zone that vessels awaiting suitable tidal facilities to enter the locks would have to moor.

Now as to navigation, I suppose the Port of London Authority have had greater experience of locking ships and smaller craft than any other body in the world. To give your Lordships some idea of the problem, I am told that taking last year's figures 43,000 ships and 463,000 craft of one kind or another would have to be locked, and those numbers are increasing year by year. I tell your Lordships this after having taken the advice of the Authority's officers, that it is a physical impossibility. Ships do not run to time; they are not scheduled like trains; they come when they please, and they come sometimes in rushes, especially after fog when they have been detained down below Gravesend. They come then in a mass, and they require space to manœeuvre. I understand that this proposal provides for six locks. I am told, and I believe it to be a fact, that bearing in mind the necessity for manœuvring it would not be possible to use half the locks at the same time. This is a matter of paramount importance, outweighing any of the benefits which the noble Earl tells us we are going to derive from the barrage, and is fatal to the scheme.

The noble Earl has told us that the construction of this dam is to cost £4,500,000. He does not say who is to pay that sum. He does not say who is to find the £4,500,000, or who is to maintain the barrage when it is constructed. Presumably, the Port of London Authority will have to maintain and operate it; they will have to cover the cost and they will have to recover that cost from ships by way of dues, thereby rendering the Port of London dearer than it is to-day. Let me give your Lordships an illustration of the happy-go-lucky way in which this question has been approached. The original scheme provided for the level of the so-called lake to be four or five feet below Trinity high water. It was pointed out to them that at that level of the water many of the wharves along the hanks of the river would be put out of business because craft would not be able to come alongside their quays. "Well," they said, "we will make the level of the lake Trinity high water." We pointed out to them that at that level the colliers, which take something like 2,000,000 tons of coal every year to the power stations above the bridges, when they had discharged their cargoes and there was five or six feet more free-board would not be able to get under the bridges coming down again. "Oh," they said, "that is easily remedied; the colliers must be reconstructed or the bridges must be raised."

I do not know whether it has occurred to those who are advocating this scheme, or to any of your Lordships, what would happen in the event of this barrage being successfully bombed by enemy aircraft? During the last War we had a good deal of experience of bombing in the Port of London. The enemy used the river as their guide, and frequently the docks as their target. We were fortunate. Several bombs dropped into dock water but none of them happened to hit any of our quays, or our locks, or our warehouses, and the only damage we sustained was from our own anti-aircraft guns. If this dam, after it was constructed, were successfully bombed at or about low water it would lead to an appalling disaster.

We have been told that works of this nature have been successfully constructed in other rivers. That comparison leaves me quite unmoved. No two rivers in the world are alike. There is no river in the world like the Thames. It has certain natural advantages which render it peculiarly adaptable for the handling of ships and the transit of goods. This is what the Royal Commission, which reported on the Port of London in 1902, said: In conclusion we desire to say that our inquiry into the conditions of the Port of London has convinced us of its splendid natural advantages. Among these are the river tides, strong enough to transport traffic easily to all parts yet not so violent as to make navigation difficult. It is because of these advantages that this town of London sprang into existence. It is because of these advantages that here to-day in London is the greatest concentration of mercantile and industrial activity in the world. It is because of these advantages that London is the banking centre of the world, and the insurance centre of the world, and the greatest market in the world. We are asked to sacrifice these advantages in order to provide ourselves with a lake—in the upper reaches of the tidal waters a lake of very doubtful purity.

I am asked why we have opposed the proposal for an inquiry. Let me remind your Lordships that the Port of London Act calls upon the Authority: … to take into consideration the state of the river and the accommodation and facilities afforded in the Port of London, and … to take such steps as they may consider necessary for the improvement thereof. We have been engaged upon that task for the last twenty-eight years. During that time the net registered tonnage of shipping has increased from 38,500,000 tons to 61,796,000 tons. That enormous increase in traffic, I claim, has been provided for by the foresight of the Authority. I quote the words of a leading shipowner some few years ago when he expressed the opinion that the Port of London was the most efficient port in the world. It seems rather strange to me that an association knowing nothing whatever of the trade of the Port of London should come along at this time of day to teach us our own business.

We have always listened to proposals, whether they come from bodies of important shipping organisations or from trading organisations, or from individuals. We have always listened with every sympathy and have sometimes found ourselves able to adopt valuable proposals. The suggestions that we have received from individuals, however, are rarely of any value. It may interest your Lordships to hear of two or three. Here is one for the prevention of flood—a suggestion that by mooring a number of vessels by the stern with bows directed up-stream and with engines going full speed ahead below the flood area the effect of floods might be reduced. Another scheme was to check the flow of water up the river and so prevent floods by suspending weighted nets, supported by mooring posts and tugs at intervals along the river. Then there was a proposal for a service of electrically-driven passenger and goods vessels, the power to be obtained from overhead electric wires suspended from reinforced concrete poles fixed in the bed of the river at intervals of 150 feet. There was another barrage scheme, which included island sites in the middle of the river at which ships could be discharged, the goods to be lowered to underground tubes with connections to the goods depots. Then there was to be an aeroplane landing place over the London Dock, and seaplanes were to be landed in the St. Katherines Dock.

These proposals sound rather fantastic, but not one of them would do so serious an injury to the Port of London as would a barrage. They come from individuals, and perhaps the analogy is not too far drawn because behind this Motion stands an Association, and behind the Association an individual, having no experience of the trade of the Port or of the navigation of the river, without the support of any shipping organisation, any trading organisation, any wharfingers' organisation, any lighterage organisation, any local authority. It is the same individual, my Lords, who a few years ago by carrying on an agitation in favour of a river bus service at last secured a public inquiry. It took five days, it ended in a negative result, no doubt it cost a good deal of money, and it occupied the time of a good many important people. I hope that the Port of London Authority will be spared a similar experience. We have got more important things to do, and I trust therefore that the Government will not countenance this Motion.

LORD DESBOROUGH

My Lords, I hope you will excuse my making a few remarks on the present occasion as for more than thirty years I have been interested in this question of keeping the water in the Thames at a permanent level as far down the river as possible. The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, has received this proposal with all the enthusiasm which I expected of him! He also mentioned that it is no new scheme. That is perfectly true. It was mooted, in the 1850's by Herbert Spencer, the philosopher, who was also an engineer, and one to whom I think my noble friend will allow some gleams of intelligence. It was also mooted at the same time for the City of Boston, which, as my noble friend Lord Jessel has just been able to inform you from personal knowledge, has carried it out to the very great benefit of its citizens. I do not for a moment say that the traffic problems there are anything like the traffic problems that confront my noble friend. I do say, however, that this example shows that if you construct a barrage over a river you can produce a most beneficial result to all those above the barrage.

As my noble friend has already said, I was interested in this question when the Port of London Authority was being created, and I then went on a deputation to the Board of Trade, of which Mr. Gerald Balfour, as he then was, was President. The only reply was not concerned with the merits of the case, but it was said that as a new body was being set up it would be premature to do anything until it had been constituted. I also had personal experience in the matter when I was Chairman of the Thames Conservancy in the old days. Our jurisdiction used to go down as far as Yantlet Creek. We put up a half-tidal weir at Richmond which produced such beneficial results that various places down below, such as Putney and Wandsworth, came to us and asked that a similar half-tide weir should be constructed in their neighbourhood to save them from the awful mud flats they had at low tide. Hence my interest in the scheme. It seemed to me that if a weir could be built lower down and the level of the water raised very considerably, say to Trinity high-water mark—which could be done by a barrage with locks—it would be one of the finest things ever done for London.

As regards the trade of the Port, it is really a matter for investigation as to how far making a deep river above the barrage would hinder or improve navigation. Of course those who work with me think that the improvement to navigation would be very great. Instead of a river sometimes flowing one way and sometimes another, with low tides causing ships to have to wait for a tide before they can come up at all, you would always be able to navigate the river at any state of the tide without having these long waits, sometimes for six hours. The trade of the river would be greatly improved.

As regards pollution, what happens now in the Thames opposite these Houses of Parliament is that the water is neither fresh nor salt water; it is simply dirty water, which oscillates up and down twice in the course of a natural day and, as my noble friend has just said, contains 280,000,000 gallons of moderately filtered effluent which comes up from Barking and Crossness and goes up and down at every tide. At slack water it goes on to the mud flats and, as Dr. Shadwell and others have said, becomes a nuisance and a great menace to London. I rather gather from what my noble friend said that he thought that the effect on this sewage effluent going up with one tide and down with the other, up with the next tide and down again, was to some extent to purify it. My information is that this is not so. There is so much silt in solution in this dirty water that flows up and down the river beside the Houses of Parliament that there is no such purification as would occur if the water going down were fresh.

My noble friend has said something about the question of money, but when I read that schemes costing £110,000,000 for filtering the effluent and doing a great deal for the drainage of London are on foot, I think that our small formula, carrying with it all the benefits of a wide and always high river, seems almost paltry. He also mentions the pumping of the low lands. When you have a very high tide all the drains are obviously made inoperative, and a certain amount of pumping is required. If you had a permanent level you would not have these high tides and floods. My noble friend must remember the unfortunate people who were drowned in their bedrooms some eight years ago in Grosvenor Road. Their deaths were entirely due to the tides surging up. These tides surge up much more now than they used to. The more the river is dredged, the greater the flow will be and the higher and the lower will be our tides.

The suggestion is that an inquiry should be made into this scheme which is being carried out with great success not only in Boston but also in various other cities. At all events it does merit an inquiry. From my experience—and I have had experience of some fifty locks on the Thames—the modern idea of treating these rivers to prevent flooding will be to stop the tides. The first thing that was done after the inquiry that took place into the recent flooding of the Ouse, on the advice of experts from Holland, was to deal with the tides. That system has been carried out with great success on many other rivers. We have been told by a great authority that our old men should dream dreams and our young men should see visions. My visions and dreams for some time past have been to stand on the terrace of the House of Commons and see a river flowing one way, clean and full, worthy of the capital of the Empire through which it flows.

LORD SNELL

My Lords, I regret that I am not in a position to enter into this jovial conflict between the noble Lords, Lord Ritchie of Dundee and Lord Desborough. When two masters of the river quarrel so deliberately as they do on this important matter, how shall those of us who are laymen venture even to express an opinion? I only desire to say a word or two and to consider the matter from the standpoint of the London County Council. As we see the problem, it is primarily one which affects the Port of London Authority. While Lord Jessel's description of the Authority pleases one side of my nature intensely, I and the London County Council have to live side by side with the Port of London Authority with such good feeling as we may be able to stimulate.

In any case I should like to say a word about what the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, said about the state of the waters in the river. They are far from satisfactory—everyone will admit that at once—but it is only fair to say that the London County Council have spent a great deal of money on trying to improve the conditions, and that schemes are already being operated. I hope I am not saying too much when I say there is reason to hope that in the near future there will be some definite improvement. That is then our position. We have arrived at no decision on this matter, but I say at once that if this barrage were to damage the Port of London in any way then the whole of London immediately becomes definitely and seriously interested. We have this statement by Lord Ritchie of Dundee, the Chairman of the Port of London Authority, that the Port of London would definitely be injured. In face of such a statement the municipal body to which I belong would not feel, until it is better informed, able to take any steps in this matter.

As your Lordships are aware, we are responsible for the disposal of the storm water which comes into London, and it is well to remember that the storm water from the two large pumping stations at Abbey Mills and Deptford, as well as others, would be discharged above the dam, which would contain almost quiescent fresh water. All I say about that is that there are definite engineering problems about which we should like to be better informed before we express our definite opinion upon them. Then there would be the possible effect of the barrage upon the levels of the river at high tide, which we ought to know more about. There is also the problem of main drainage, and attached to that is the health of the people of London. So your Lordships will see that so far as the London County Council are concerned, while we should rejoice to have a clean, flowing, fresh-water river, we do want to know what the probable results are going to be before we commit ourselves to any policy. Therefore, I can say no more than that no decision has been reached, and the Council would wish to consider very carefully all the problems involved before expressing any opinion upon this proposal.

THE EARL OF ERNE

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, asks for a public inquiry into the scheme for building a barrage at Woolwich. As regards the scheme itself, I think your Lordships will agree that the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, has dealt with all the technical questions in his clear and admirable speech, and I will not weary your Lordships in repeating what he has said. There is therefore really very little left for me to say. The main reason, apart from the objections so clearly put forward by Lord Ritchie, why the Minister of Transport is not in favour of an inquiry is that Parliament in 1908 gave the Port of London Authority the full responsibility of looking after the interests of the Port of London and the River Thames, and that that authority, for reasons which Lord Ritchie has expressed, are opposed to the scheme. The Minister of Transport has consulted with the Minister of Health on this subject, and he is also opposed to the scheme: firstly, because he considers the barrage would hold up such sewage and trade effluents as are discharged above the barrage; secondly, it would cause an accumulation at flood tides immediately below the barrage of heavily polluted water, which would be deprived of the purifying effect of movement with the tide, and it is probable that a condition which is reasonably satisfactory while the Thames is an open river would cease to be so under the new conditions, unless heavy expenditure were incurred in more intensive treatment of the effluents; and thirdly, the holding up of land water would increase the risk of flooding above Richmond.

The Minister of Transport has also been in consultation with the President of the Board of Trade, and the President is also unfavourably inclined towards the scheme. He considers that the river traffic would be impeded rather than facilitated. In his view it does not seem practicable, in the space available, to provide locks of sufficient capacity to cope with the volume of traffic, and the process of locking would inevitably involve delays and congestion of shipping, with increased danger of collision, particularly in thick or foggy weather. Also, there would be immense dislocation and loss of trade and industry during the construction of the barrage, which would take some considerable time to build.

I should also like to point out to your Lordships that although some riparian and local authorities and other bodies have passed resolutions in favour of an inquiry, there has been no substantial demand by any responsible shipping, trade or commercial organisation, or by local authorities interested in the river and port. In these circumstances the Minister of Transport still sees no reason which would justify him in putting the numerous interests concerned to the expense and trouble of an inquiry. I hope, in view of what I have said and in view of the remarks which have fallen from the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, that my noble friend Lord Dudley will not press his Motion.

Tim EARL OF DUDLEY

My Lords, this debate has really turned out exactly as I expected it would. You have heard the reply of the Chairman of the Port of London Authority, and also the Government's reply. The two are exactly similar. It really appears quite obvious that the Government have been briefed by the Port of London Authority, and that in these matters the Government are merely in the pocket of the Port of London Authority. My heart bled for my noble friend Lord Ritchie of Dundee, because he really put forward nothing, I submit to your Lordships, which was an arguable case against an inquiry into this project. Every single thing which he said, and which Lord Erne said, was a greater argument for inquiry into these things which are vital to the City of London.

The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, at the outset of his speech took up a remark of my noble friend Lord Jesse, who suggested that there might perhaps be private interests at the back of the Port of London Authority's objection to the scheme. Well, I do not want to go into that, and I do not blame the noble Lord for taking up that attitude. At the same time I must point out to your Lordships that he went on to compare this project to a lot of Colney Hatch schemes which he himself quoted from correspondence such as we all receive from lunatics, and which quite naturally comes to every public man and every public body. But I submit that it was insulting to compare a scheme of this sort with the madcap Heath Robinson schemes quoted by Lord Ritchie of Dundee. The noble Lord then sank rather low in saying that this was a one-man scheme. I can assure your Lordships that it is anything but a one-man scheme, and because an association has an energetic secretary, a secretary who knows what he is talking about, and who has studied the subject from A to Z, that does not mean that it is a one-man scheme.

I am interested in this project because I happen to be the President of an association called the Parliamentary Science Committee, which has on its board many of the most practical scientists in England. They are all in favour of this project. I do not think that your Lordships can take Lord Ritchie's suggestion that it is a one-man scheme seriously when you have heard such a great authority as my noble friend Lord Desborough speaking of it, and when I tell your Lordships that it is supported by so famous an engineer as Sir Murdoch Macdonald. But I am not going to take up your Lordships' time by entering into all the points put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee. I can assure you that we have an answer to all of them, that they have been gone into very carefully by as great a body of expert opinion as the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie, can produce. In regard to locking we have the assurances of the greatest engineers in the land that the locking capacity is sufficient, and that the manœuvring space is sufficient. The question of head room under the bridges is a very minor point. There is no vessel, I believe, that is in the habit of passing under those bridges at low tide at present that cannot pass through at Trinity House high water mark—admittedly with a small margin, but they could get through, with about a quarter foot margin.

But I do not want to argue those points, and I explained to your Lordships at the beginning that we do not claim that this is a water-tight scheme. We do not suggest that this particular scheme should be carried out. We submit that the principle is a right one, and that that is all the more reason for holding an inquiry into it. I have suggested that the Port of London Authority themselves might carry out this inquiry. We do not want a governmental inquiry if they will do it themselves, and yet the noble Lord has refused, for some reason best known to himself, that inquiry, which cannot cost the Port of London Authority anything substantial, and can only take up a very small part of their time and energy. And yet because they refuse to carry out this inquiry the comfort, the con- venience and the prosperity of thousands of London citizens have to suffer.

I feel that this is not a Motion which I should press to a Division, for very obvious reasons. I believe that if it were pressed to a Division I should obtain your Lordships' support. But I hope that the noble Lord has realised by this debate that there is an enormous body of opinion in favour of this project, and that he cannot hold out much longer against an inquiry. I can assure him that this is not an association of straw. The Parliamentary Science Committee, to which the Thames Barrage Association is affiliated, is going to continue its labours full blast until we get this inquiry, which we consider is in the public interest. I thank your Lordships most warmly for so patiently hearing this debate. I hope that you will continue to press for this inquiry, and I hope that your Lordships' time has not been wasted by my raising the question now. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.