The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-19 00:00:00

and were content only to talk about doing something to im-

Provo it. The discussion about the matter has lasted now
for about 200 3 ears. (A laugh, and Hear, hear.) The first

step towards embanking the Thames was taken by one of
his most illustrious predecessors. After the Great Fire, Sir
C. Wren, in drawing up those plans for the r9building of
London which would have rendered it a really handsome

and symmetrical city, proposed a quay from London-bridge
to the Temple. An act was passed sanctioning the work,
bttt only a portion of it was completed. In 1767 the corpora-
tion of London obtained powers to make an embankment,
about half a mile of which was constructed, and it was then
stopped. There had been partial embankments, such as
that at the Adolph'; but those had only aggravated the ir-
regularities of the river. What was wanted was a uniform
systetn. In 1824 Sir F. Trench agitated the question. He
assemblel a number of the raft; eminent authorities in art
and science on a barge itiooted off Sc,otiZd-yard, with the
Duke of York in the chair, who adapted a scheme for an em-
bankment between London and Westminster bridges, In
1825 Sir F. Trench brought a bill for that purpose iite Par-

liament. That bill was opposed by those who, taking a short
sighted view of their own interests, believed they would be
injured by it. Sir F. Trench injudiciously thought it would
be well to attempt to conciliate the opposition of the occu-
pants and owners of property on the banks of the river, and
for that purpose he consented to curtail his plan. At first,
instead of carrying it to Westminster-bridge, he made it
stop short at Whitehall-stairs, Being then met by new ob-
jections, he agreed to stop short at Scotland -yard. This
had the effect of calling forth fresh objections, in deference
to which he consented to stop at Craven-street. These con-
cessions only induced the inhabitants along the whole
length of the rest of the line to combine their resistance,
and they said, " If this work is not to be carried out in front
of the property of persons of great wealth and station, why
should it be carried out in front of ours ?" and in conse-
quence of these and other reasons Sir F. Trench had to
abandon his bill. Nothing more was done till the year 1844,
when a Royal Commission teak up the subject. That com-
mission was presided over by the Duke of Newcastle, and
after hearing a great deal of valuable engineering evidence
they reported that it was desirable the river should be em-
banked between London-bridge and Vauxhall-bridge, and
.recommended, as the most pressing part of the work, that
the section between Blackfriars and Westminster should be
first proceeded with, and a bill was.introduced in 1845, but
did not become law. In 1860 the subject was again renewed
in that house, and a committee appointed to inquire into it.
They recommended, as the previous commission had done,
the embankment of the river between Blackfriars-bridge
and Westminster• bridge, and suggested that the coal duties
would form the proper source from which to defray the ex-
pense. That committee, however, did not adopt any parti-
cular plan. Last year a Royal Commission again sat on the
subject, and went very fully into a large number of plans
submitted to them by the Most eminent engineers. They
recommended not only an embankment generally, but the
specific plan to which the bill now about to be introduced
was intended to give effect. That plan, he thought, there
could be no doubt, was the best yet devised. This subject
had been so thoroughly investigated that almost every
engineer of distinction had had an opportunity of giving
his opinion and making suggestions upon it, and the
plan now proposed had the sanction of a come
mission comprising not only very able scientific
men and eminent engineers, but also thorough men of
business. Its main advantage over most of those pre-
viously suggested was that it did not attempt to maintain
the wharfs. Almost all the former plans were only ingeni-
ous modes of combining access to a wharf with a roadway
—a difficulty which no engineering skill Could entirely over-
come. The last commission, therefore, thought it better to
buy up the what fs and abolish them altogether, and then
make a solid embankment with an ordinary roadway, No
public inconvenience would arise from that arrangement,
because the former necessity for those wharfs in the neigh-
bourhood of Scotland-yard, which were principally coal
wharfs, had been superseded by the facilities that now ex-
isted, for at once transferring the cargoes from the colliers
into railway trucks and conveying them whither they were
wanted. In fact, any establishment of wharfs in the imme-
diate vicinity of Charing-cross, the Strand, and Whitehall,
was obviously a great inconvenience ; and the general
utility of those thoroughfares would be increased by their
removal. In point of economy, too, it would be far better
to give the owners of the wharves the whole value of their
property at once, rather than compensate them first for the
injury done them during the progress of the works, and then
leave them the reversionary interest on their wharves after
the works were completed. Another feature of this plan was
the formation of a thoroughfare from Bladefriars doridge to
the Mansion-house, because a mere roadway along an em-
bankment would not supply that great desideratum, a com-
plete thoroughfare from the West-end, say Charingecross, to
the Mansion-house, the traffic between which points now re-
quired to be relieved. It was originally proposed that the em-
bankment should proceed further east thanßlackfriars-bridge;
but the river was very narrow between London-bridge and
Southwark, and it was not desirable for its navigation that
any encroachment should be made upon it in that part.
And as to the space between Southwark-bridge and Black-
friars-bridge, the narrowness of the river and the great
value of the wharf property would render the advantages
of embankment quite incommensurate with the expense.
Therefore this plan consisted of a roadway, commencing
from Westminster-bridge, passing along the banks of the
river until it reached Blackfriars-bridge, then proceeding
with a street of great breadth across Thames-street and
Cannon-street, and at length reaching that great centre
surrounded on different sides by the Mansion-house, the
Bank, and the Royal Exchange. The funds from which
the work was to be executed were those which were
appropriated to this special purpose by an Act of
last Session. The London Coal an& Wine Duties
Continuance Act provided that the coal duties should be
applied in the first place to the Thames embankment, and
afterwards to any other public improvements that might
appear desirable. He believed that the whole of the coal
duties during the period for which they were continued by
the Act of last year—via., ten years, would be required for
this object. It was the opinion of the house last year that
these duties could hardly be better employed than in pro-
viding for this great thoroughfare and the embankment of
the Thames ; and, among the many great metropolitan im-
provements effected by means of the coal duties, none, he
thought, would be more appreciated than this. He pro-
posed that the execution of the Act should be confided to
the Metropolitan Board of Works—a body created by the
Legislature for the discharge of duties very much of that
nature. The main drainage of the metropolis was very
analogous to the formation of the proposed embankment
and the opening of the proposed street. It was said the
Metropolitan Board of Works was too much occupied by
the business it already had to do, and that it was too large
a body to perform executive work of this importance. But,
to guard against that objection, the bill would provide that
the executive works thrown upon them by the measure
should not be carried out by the whole Board, consisting
of 40 members, but by a committee to be elected by the
Board itself for this special purpose. (Hear, hear.) The
committee would be composed of nine members, two
of whom would be selected from the gentlemen
who represented the city of London in the Board ; be-
cause, as a large portion of the work would pass through
the City, it would be only right that the interests of
the City should be represented in the committee, as they
now were in the Board itself. It had always been thought
desirable that the embankment should extend, not merely
between Blackfriars-bridge and Westminster-bridge, as
proposed by the present bill, but should extend as far as
Vauxhall-bridge or even Battersea-bridge. Now if this
bill were carried out there would remain unembanked only
that small space between Westminster-bridge and the end
of Millbank-street, near the Penitentiary. We might,
therefore, hope a few years hence to see that part of the
work also completed, in which case there would be seen
running from Blackfriars-bridge to Chelsea—a distance of
about four miles—as splendid a quay as could be found in
any city in the world. Hon. members might picture the
effect which would be produced in the course of a walk
along the embankment by the splendid buildings within
sight—the Houses of Parliament, Somerset-house, and the
fine churches and steeples of Sir Christopher Wren. This
five miles' promenade and drive would, indeed, be a great
source of recreation and admiration. At present it was not
proposed to embank the southern side of the river. A com-
mittee was new sitting which had heard a great deal of
evidence, and until it had reported it would be premature
to form any opinion on this subject. Among the advan-
tages which would be derived from the embankment now
proposed, some considerable spaces of grass and trees would
be thrown open by the side of the river to the dense popu-
lation north of the Strand, and here they might breathe
fresh air—(a laugh)—for he hoped that the river would
then be free from sewage, and that the people would obtain
enjoyment and healthy recreation from disporting them-
selves on the bank of a clear river. (Hear, hear.) At
some points it was intended to build, the land being let on
building leases, and he hoped that here some fine terraces
and streets would arise which would be an orna-
ment to the banks of the river. The powers contem•
plated by the bill would be committed to the Metropolitan
Board, without any control or interference, except that
the coal dues were at present in the hands of the Trea-
sury. The bill would empower the Treasury to pay the
money to the Board, who, however, would be left free and
unfettered in executing the purposes of the Act. Theright
hon. gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in
a bill for embanking the north side of the river Thames
from *Westminster-bridge, and for making now streets in
and near thereto, and from Blackfriars-bridge to the Man-
sion-house..
Mr. AYRTON rose on a point of order. The bill which
it was now proposed to introduce was for the reguletion or
appropriation of a nublic tax, and it was unusual to intro-
duce such a bill except in a committee of the whole house.
The right hon. gentleman seemed to have forgotten the pre-
cedent to which he lately submitted when he proposed to
appropriate a tax for the purpose of making a road in Ken-
sington Gardens. Ho then made the usual ration that the
house should resolve itself into a committee fer the purpose
of considering the Act, and it would be a dangerous prece-
dent if this course were departed from in the present in-
stance. The coal-tax was in point of fact a public tax, and
ought not to be treated in a local bill. Again, it was extra-
ordinary that the right hon• gentleman should have given
no estimate, and not said a word about the sum he wanted
to complete the works. (Hear, hear.) ;
Mr. COWPER said that in his view the bill imposed IIG