The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-24 00:00:00

COMMERCIAL.

As is usual at this season of the year, there is little ani-
mation in our markets. The demand for most staples is
not very active, arising principally from the want of com-
munication with the interior districts. Stocks continue
moderate, with the exception of deals, which are now scant ;
but arrivals being anticipated, the demand will shortly be
met. Coffee—Stocks moderate ; no advance upon prices
given in our summary of last month. Rice—Stocks con-
siderable of both White and brown. No change in prices.
Sugars—The stock of low quality sugars is considerable,
and dull of Sale. A light stock of yellows and crystallised
saleable at from 30s. to 425. per 100 lb. gross.

point into the northern c utfall channel, through
which it should be dischaxg ed at Sea Reach. The
cost of this crossing is estimated at £250,000, and
the total cost of the 'reduced' plan at £4,000,000
(four millions sterling).
"It is not my duty to ey.ia nine this reduced
plan' of the Government re' terees. It is, indeed,
unnecessary to do ; for they h ave already condemned
their own plan by anticipate on. A plan for con-
veying the southern drama: p.l to the northern side
of the Thames by a tube or Tunnel was originally
proposed to them by Mr. 3'l' Clean, C.E. (to whom
the referees have now omitteil to assign the merit),
but upon whose plan tly.ey- reported in their
original report (pp. 31,, 32), declaring, inter
alia, 'that the proposal to pump the whole of the
sewage on the south side is undesirable, because it
entails great risk of floods, and an expense which
would be considerable at the present time, and one
likely to increase.
" In our report to your board. of April last, it
was shown that between 3 uly- 31, 1857, and Feb. 4,
1858, the Government ref erees had recommended
no less than four differeitt schemes for the main
drainage of the metropolis :- •
" I. They/ first recommended open and partially
tidal sewers on-tach_side of the Thames, commen-
cing respectively at Plaistow and the Ravensbourne.
(July 31, 1857.)
" 11. Their first plan having been universally
condemned, they next recommended covered and
wholly tidal sewers, commencing at Channel-Sea
Island and the East Greenwich Marshes.. (Nov. 12,
1857.)
" 111. This plan having been referred to us, and
it being obvious that it would not bear the test of
examination, the plan of the original report was
abandoned, and a third, or ameneed plan,' was
sent in to us, which proposed sewers altered in size
and shape, tide-locked, with inverts lowered, and
passing in an entirely new direction through the
country to new points of outfall. (lan. 8, 1858.)
" IV. On the meeting of Parliament, a copy of
the last-mentioned paper was communicated to the
House of Commons, together with an explanatory
appendix (not previously communicated to us), in
whch such modifications were made in the amended
plan (the previous plans having all been based on
quantities calculated in error for too large a storm-
flow') as amounted almost to a new plan. (This
paper bears date 4th February, 1858.)
" V. The Government referees have now aban-
doned all the foregoing plans, and have proposed
the 'reduced plan' above referred to, proposing to
carry all the sewage from the south to the north
side of the Thames, by a tube or tunnel under or
over the river, and to discharge it altogether from
the north side of the metropolis by one channel
ending at Sea Reach. (August 16, 1858.)
" Their original report was issued at a cost to the
country of nearly £lO,OOO. At the very outset of
that report it was stated by the Government referees
to have been adopted after ' a minute personal in-
spection of every part of the metropolitan area, a
careful consideration of_ every plan submitted, and
communications with many persons of practical ex-
perience on the subject.' Yet within five months
the conclusions of that elaborate and most costly
document were ignored by its authors, who, within
little more than twelve months, have proposed no
less than five distinct plans, the last of which, whilst
it sufficiently acknowledges the impracticability of
the first, would prove still more impracticable, ob-
jectionable, and costly than the others.
" But if the plans of the Government referees
have throughout been ill-considered, their estimates
have been still more so.
For their first plan their estimate was .. £5,437,300
44
For their second plan 5,987,300
For their third plan, a wholly different
plan from the others, their estimate,
strange tosay, was identical with the
second, viz.
For their fourth plan there was no esti-
mated cost, but it was stated that the
result would be a saving of £300,000
on Plan No 3.
For the fifth, or ' Reduced plan,' it is
stated the estimate will not exceed . . 4,000,000
" Our estimates for the cost of the several works,
'on corrected quantities, and on Mr. John Oakley's
report, as to the value of the land and buildings to
be passed through were :
For their first plan £11,000,000
For their second plan
For their, third plan 7,000,000

5,987,300

Our estimates for Our own plan, upon the same
quantities and valuations (which the Government
referees have been unable to impugn*) being
£2,300,000.
" The discrepancies between our estimates and
the estimates of the referees were remarkable ; the

more so as it distinctly appeared that the plan they
estimated as the least costly must prove the most
so. In our report we therefore discussed and con-
sidered this part of the question most minutely.
Under separate items we exhibited in detail the
various deficiencies in the estimates of the re-
ferees, the errors in their quantities, the heavy
omissions, and the large discrepancies. The
facts drove us to the conclusion, as we expressed
in our report, that the government referees, never
had had time to master, arrange, or harmonise the
results of the vast inquiry on which they had en-
tered,' and that they had reported without making
their calculations with anything approaching de-
tailed accuracy.

" In these conclusions we are more than confirmed
by the last letter of the government referes. The
new proposals which conclude that letter=-the en-
tire abandonment of the plan of their original re-
port—the suggestion of a reduced plan '—the
adopted proposal to carry all the sewage of the
south side of London by a tube or tunnel under or
over the Thames to the north of London, a plan
condemned in their first report—and the further
revision of their estimates—all these things confirm
the conviction that the original reports of the go-
vernment referees, issued at a cost to the nation of
£lO,OOO, and abandoned in principle and detail
within one short year after their date, and much
less than a year after their publication, disentitle
them to any confidence whatever.
" It is, indeed, impossible not to reflect upon the
embarrassed position in which the Metropolitan
Board and ratepayers of the metropolis would
have been placed had they adopted, implicity
and without examination, the original report of the
government referees. Having prepared plans this
time last year for carrying into effect the project No.
1, they would have found themselves, in Nov., 1857,
obliged to set aside such documents, and to prepare
new and costly plans for the execution of the
amended works proposed by No. 2. By Christmas
last contracts would probably have been made for
the purchases of lands and buildings and the exe-
cution of the works under that plan, which must
all have been set aside in January, when plan No.
3 was proposed with an entirely new form of sewer,
sizes, levels, routes, and points of outfall. Had any-
thing been done under that ' amended' project there
must have been further changes and expenses in
February ; whilst now, only one year from the
publication of their first report, new arrangements
would have had to be made (under the authority of
the Government engineers) for an entire abandon-
ment of the southern outfall channel, and for the
construction of a tunnel under the Thames upon a
reduced' plan, together with sewers of altered
sizes and shapes upon the north side to carry off
the double quantity of sewage.
" Surely such changes and their consequent ex-
penses would have been fair subject for complaint
alike on the part of the board, their officers, and
the ratepayers; and surely it may be fairly urged
that professional gentlemen instructed by Govern-
ment to consider and report upon matters of such
consequence, should better consider their proposals,
and should not run the risk of involving the pub-
lic in the tedium of protracted delays and in the
enormous additional expenditure requisite to
enable the engineers of the Metropolitan Board to
follow the vacillating plans of Government re-
ferees.

" I can only rejoice that the course taken by your
board has saved the public this infliction and ex-
pense. The inqUiry instituted under your direction
gave opportunity . for more careful investigation
and thoughtful deliberation. The original conclu-
sions of our retort have been amply confirmed by sub-
sequent exammation -and discussion, and we have
seen no occasion to vary, in any way, our original
designs or. estimates. Your board may proceed with
the execution of the plan before them for the main
drainage of the metropolis without. any undue
anxiety as to the results.—l have the honour to
remain, your very faithful servant,
".G. P. BIDDER.
" 24, Great George-street, Westminster,
September 20, 1858.
" N.B.—My late colleagues, Mr. Hawksley and
Mr. Bazalgette, being, the one in the north of Eng-
land and the other wholly occupied upon your
works, and being myself.upon the point of imme-
diate departure for Denmark, I am under the neces-
sity of making this:•communication without refer-
ence to them. I feel assured, however, that they
would entirely concur in all I have expressed."

" The only point on which the Government referees
have called in question the figures-in our estimate relates to
the price of land, as to which they say that we have charged
them at the rate of £1,300 per acre for the land they re-
quired, only valuing our own land at £3OO per acre. This
is an illustration of their recklessness of assertion. Mr.
Oakley's estimate of £1,300 per acre was not alone for land,
but included buildings in Greenwich, Woolwich, Graves-
end, and the other towns and villages. The £3OO per acre
assumed by the referees nowhere occurs in our report ; it is
an item the referees have imagined or invented ; and the
fact is that instead of £3OO per acre, we have estimated the
cost of the land, &c. (without buildings) at an average of
no less than £1503 per acre, exceeding by £2OO per acre
the average pnce at which the referees state we have esti-
mated for their plans."

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