The Express.
London, England, 1847-03-31 00:00:00

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S( water, should be placed under the same control and juria.
diction, the goveniment proposed to give all these powers to
the body which was to be appointed to Carry out on the vat
the neeieury functions. It wee net necessary to embody all
the proviions respecting these various him hens of drainage,
sewerage, and the II Uppiy of water In the present bill, inasmuch
as they were embodied in a bill drawn up by • committee at
too end of last season and brought forward in the present
when, and some of which had passed through the house.
fie next point for consideratidn was, what was the local
body to be? Lord Lincoln's bill reminded for a sew electoral
hole, end a great p irti .n of it whetakon up with a variety of
clauses which regulated the boundaries of the roe s electoral
that-fete, triete, and for a complete electoral. system. He (Lord Mot-
pith; thought they had already enossgh of elections, and it
was not desirable t o create a new electoral system. Various
sogaestinns hail been made as to the conditutinn the local
body. He had laid it dowse u the basis of legis'ation on the
subject, that the various powers and functions should be
consolidated: the., he would say, let them make the eon.
solid ition complete, and centre it in those bodies who had
been olreetly chosen by the citizens at large for the govern-
Meld of their several communi'ies; and he thought the
powers of sewerage, drainage, paying, and cleansing were
prop, r functions for the municipal authorities, the town
councils. (Hear, hear.) And although some party feeling
might still exist nmongst then, bodies, there was good reason
to h beer that the more of important and useful duties im-
phsed upon them, the more would mere party demarcation
he weakened, and the more would they tempt valuable and
useful men to join those belies. lie had there ore
but little hesitation in recommending the adoption of the
chitin.; municipal bodies for the local administration of the
powers of the bill. The only difficulty seemed to be in the
annexvion of suburbs ; but they proposed to take a power
of annesing those to the nearest ward, and even of creating
fresh wants whenever the number of inhabitants included
in these bits of land or suburbs should seem to call far it.
lie was niuth confirmed in this view by an extract from the
report of the lilanch. stet Health of Towns Association,
which seemed to put the point very clearly :
" their objections to this creation ef a new body to whom three
powers are to be transferred, are two-fold; trot, they anticipate
many evils as likely to arise from an arrangement involving new
elections, the appointment of new sets of officers, and the existence of
perhaps condicting authority in the same locality; and next
they fear that these clauses will give rise to as opposi-
tion to the bill generally, by which the advantages to the com-
munity of its purely aanitory provisions will he endangered ; and
even if that opposition should be ineffective, they think It umbels!e
that obstacles and impediments to the introduction of sacs
roforms will arias, that world not have to be encountered,
were the wishes and interests of thaw connected with the existing
municipal goers nmcnt more closely attended to. The committee see
as ad,quate ground for running these risks, and encounteriog these
obstacles; it tope Ire to them that where town councils exist, the
powers proposed to to entrusted to the new commicsiorers might be
isefeiy entrusted under similar checks and securities given by govern-
ment euperinteodenoc to town °AMC& ; that the powers of surveyors
of highways and of turnpike trusts might be equally well tr imPrred;
that the surrnund rag district, constituting the urea of n aural drain-
age, might, if I.llCtillaeti by her Majesty in Council, be added to the
meting municipal boroughs; and that, in shun, the whole Ural
machinery tithe bill would be messily provided, without interfering
with the existihe institutions, and withontencountering the opposition
which the bill is Its present form will inevitably meet with."
Power would be taken to secure the complete dreinage where
it was necessary, even in districts beyond the suburbs.
There were in my towns of large size which had not muni-
cipal cnrporatious, and which might be greatly in want of
improved drainage—he might mention Brighton and Chel-
tenham as instances. The government at first thought of
adhering to the practice of a hich they had an example in
the commissioners of sewers, merely appointing commission-
ers. and leaving it to the towns to apply, if they should
think tit, for charters of incorporation ; but be had now to
propose, that in such towns or cities commissioners should be
elected by the rate-payers, which could be done tinder the
provisions of an act passed this session; and that the crown
on the recommendation of the Central Beasi of Public
Health should by allowed to nominate a certain number of
adjuncts, not exceeding one-third of the body chosen.
(Hear, bear.) The bill did not include any provisions for
Ireland or Scotland ; he thought they bad better have
separate enactments, and he hoped his right hon. friends
more especially connected with the administration of affairs
in those countries would give their beet attention to the
construction and working of the bill he had the honor to
propose, and adapt its provisions to them. The government
proposed to include London in the enactments of the bill ;
they did not see why the provisions, which applied to other
incorporated districts, might not be equally applicable to the
metropMis. The whole sewerage of London wee now under
the control of commissioners of sewers—consisting of