The Express.
London, England, 1863-01-06 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 6.

A souses of revenue which shall produce an-
nually half the amount raised by every species
of existing taxation is a dream of delight too
blissful ever to visit the CHANCELLOR of the Ex-
CHEQUER'S pillow. Yet such a promise, resting on
data which, even if they should fail to be realised
to the full extent, at least make certain a
return no leas than the total product of our pre-
sent Income Tax, was gravely submitted to public

consideration by a Committee of the House of
Commons, in a Report issued last week. Nor, to
make the marvel more astonishing, were the pecu-
niary results the whole of the advantage held
out in the scheme. Its adoption would relieve us
of a great prospective social difficulty, and would
contribute incalculably to the health and plea-
sure of the community. It would restore
some of the fairest scenes to the beauty
which the growth of population and manufactur-
ing energy has so sadly marred, it would turn
barren heaths into smiling harvest fields, it would
give to the nation that independence of foreign
countries in the great staples of food which we
vainly sought to accomplish by corn-law legisla-
tion. In a word, the proposition laid before us,
supported with a mass of practical evidence, and
endorsed with the acceptance of a Parliamentary
Committee, is that we should utilise the sewage of
our towns as manure for our fields. There is, in-
deed, nothing new in the idea. It has in
hundreds of places been ere now put in opera-
tion ; its value has everywhere been known to
men of science ; and we ourselves, in common
with many other journals, have not failed in
urging it from time to time on public
attention. But we may, nevertheless, fairly con-
gratulate ourselves on its having now paned
beyond the preliminary stage of discussion into
the secondary stage, when the means for carrying
it out are all that are sought; and as two proposals
to this effect were laid before Parliament last year,
and were delayed in order to allow the facts to be
fully ascertained by the Committee which has just
made its report, we may reasonably hope that this
enormous fiscal and sanitary measure will this
year receive its legislative commencement.
There will not, however, be much matter for
boasting even when we shall fully have completed
our work. We are in this matter centuries
behind other parts of the world. China
supporta her teeming population solely by careful
regard to the principles which we till now have
recklessly disregarded. All over Europe the
materials which we have left to breed pestilence in
our dwellings, or taken credit for sending into the
an, have been long considered as among the
. . . . .

chief sources of national wealth. Bat at least
this fact, though somewhat to our shame, givp us
now the better assurance of the soundness of the
step which Parliament invites us to take. Our
thrifty neighbours in Holland have, after long con-
sideration, come to the conviction that the waste
matters which we style sewage are agricultu-
rally worth 11. per head of the population
per annum. Singularly enough, one of the
most carefully conducted experiments in this
country, stated in evidence before the Committee,
gives exactly this sum as the nett value of
the increased produce resulting from the applica-
tion of sewage. Other considerations, founded
on the analytical contents of the water, and on the
market value of the several constituents, would
reduce this amount to 7or 8 shillings per head.
Perhaps the difference may be found to lie in the
circumstance that manure applied in the state of
sewage is confessedly more beneficial than if the
dry contents were sown over the fields, and thus
it may be that in this form there is really
an increase of crop obtained fairly represented by
the larger snm, although chemically the applica-
tion is only worth the smaller. Such questions we
may, however, very safely leave to be decided by
a larger experience. It is sufficient to induce us to
go on, that we know we may not improbably reap an
annual income of thirty millions of pounds from
the due utilisation of sewage, and that at the very
lowest computation we shall not fail to nett some
twelve or fourteen millions. The metropolis alone
will in this way find itself pawned of a revenue
of certainly not less than half a million a year,
and of probably four times that amount. These
prodigious sums are indeed staggering, but they
rest upon actual experience ; they are only the
multiplied expression of a rental of 201., 301., and
401. per acre, which has in many parte of the
country been actually drawn for a long series of
years from the due application of town sewage.
Nor does it appear that the cost to be incurred
in first providing the necessary arrangements for
the distribution of this precious material is such
se will form any considerable deduction from its
proceeds. Competent authorities set the outlay
necessary for fixed machinery, of pipes, and steam
engines, at from 31. to 51. per acre. When these
are laid down the labour of distribution is very
slight, and, with interest on the capital, may be
probably covered by 1/. per acre per annum. The
difference between this sum and such rentals as
we have referred to of course represents the profit
out of which the farmer can afford to pay for
the sewage, and the margin is obviously large
enough to give very handsome returns to all
parties. Thus it is computed that the town