The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-09-11 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

ADJOURNED MEETING OF THE COUNCIL-

YESTERDAY.

An adjourned meeting of the Council was held yester-
day, to take into consideration the proceedings of the
Water Committee, and other business left unfinished at
the last monthly meeting. The attendance was very thin,
there being but twelve members present at the usual hour
of meeting ; and it was a quarter-past eleven o'clock be-
fore a Council could be formed. His worship the Mayor
presided.

THE WATER COMMITTEE.
The proceedings of this committee comprised the pay.
ment of Messrs. Allen and Co.'s account for iron piping,

. .
amounting to above £3,000, the chairman of the com-
mittee protesting against the payment, on the ground that
there was no legal fund from which the payment could be
made. The minutes of the committee further stated, that

.having referred to the borough engineer's report of the
30th of June, from which it appeared that alterations and
repairs of the existing works, to the amount of £30,000,
were recommended ; and the borough engineer having
reported that the plans and drawings for these alterations
and repairs were in course of preparation, it was resolved
that the engineer be authorised to complete them ; and
further, that the committee request the opinion of the
Council be given as to the advisability of going on with
these works. The proceedings also contained a recom-
mendation that the works should be proceeded with.
Mr. HARBORD was about to move the confirmation of
the proceedings, when
The MAYOR observed that he had received a letter con-
nected with the water proceedings, which he might as well
read. It related to the non-payment of some money.
Mr. HARBORD.—Has it to do with the proper Water
Committee, or the Special Committee ?

The MAYOR.—The proper committee.
Mr, HARBORD said it was rather unusual to have the
business of a committee brought up first at the Council.
The MAYOR.—It is a letter addressed to me, and there-
fore I am bound to lay it before the Council.
Mr. HARBORD.—Oh ! I beg pardon, if so.
The TOWN-CLERK then read the letter, which was
signed by W. Wilson, on the part of the London Vulcan
Company of Glasgow. The letter stated that the com-
pany had made a contract for supplying a quantity of pipes,
upon the known honour of the Corporation, expecting to
be paid as the pipes would be delivered; that they had
now delivered about £1,600 worth of pipes, after having
suffered a serious loss on the delivery of them, in conse-
quence of the delays which occurred on the part of the
committee; that they had made repeated applications for
the money, but could not get it, and concluded by begging
that they might be paid.
Mr. HORNBY asked for the resolution of the Water

Committee to which it referred.
The TOWN-CLERK then read a resolution of the corn-

mittee of the 20th August, in which it was stated that the
committee, not having any legal funds from which to pay

the account, declined doing so.
The MAYOR suggested that the Utter might at once be
referred to the Special Committee.—Agreed to.
Mr. HARBORD then begged to move the confirmation
of the proceedings of the Water Committee. One of the
few things which be would call their attention to was the
application of the Vulcan Company for £230, on the cer-
tificate of the engineer, Mr. Hawksley That account
having been brought to the committee, and the committee
having been advised by four eminent counsel that they
had no funds out of which they could legally pay the de-
mand, wrote the reply contained in the record of their
proceedings. He would refer to one paragraph in that
letter applying tir £4,000.
The MAyon.—£l,6oo.
Mr. HARBORD begged to state that the £230 to which
he had before referred, as being for the pipes for the Ri-
vington works. was the only money which had yet been
certified for. These parties had complained that they had
been bstructed in the delivery of those pipes. Now he
(Mr. II.) could assure the Council that that. delay, if at all
caused, was caused by Mr. Hawksley, and by him alone,
so that if the Pike men complained of this, they bad Mr.
Hawksley, and Mr. Hawksley alone, to blame. (Hear.)
He would call the attention of the Council to the applica-
tion of the parish for something rather better than £5,000
for poor-rates. Previously to these works coming into
the hands of the Corporation the parish received that
amount from the old companies ; but since then the Water
Committee had been informed by their legal adviser that
it would be illegal to pay the poor-rate. The committee
next asked the advice of the Council with reference to
their present position, both financially and otherwise.
According to the act of parliament there was only one
fund which could be called the water account, and that
account was now pledged, pawned, and mortgaged, as far
as it could be. Any party corning now to lend money,
except so far as a few thousand pounds would cover, could
not, by the Water Committee. be offered the least pro-
tecticn for their investment. Ile would ask how, in the
face of the notice of injunction which had been served on
the Special Committee, that body was to get rid of its
difficulties ? (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
The MAYOR.—That Special Committee has not met
yet, and therefore we cannot say what they will do.
Mr. HARBORD wished to know how the present Water
Committee were to deal with the water account ? lie, as
chairman of the Water Committee, did not consider that
he was doing wrong in embracing every opportunity of
preventing the committee from doing that which was ille-
gal.; and he now declared that he would do all in his power
to assist the burgesses, and prevent either the special or
the old water committee from doing that which was held

to be illegal. If they could get the advice of the Council
as to the course which they (the Water Committee) should
pursue, the only course open to them was to take the ad-
vice of competent gentlemen, and pay for it themselves.
That course they were prepared to adopt. If they could
could not be advised in such a way as to prevent their
doing wrong at every turn they took, he, for one, would
cease to follow such advice. In conclusion he moved the'
confirmation of the proceedings.
Mr. BENNETT, in seconding the confirmation of the
proceedings, observed that the Vulcan Company could not
be paid out of any fund in their possession. The course
adopted by the water committee with reference to that
act was, in his opinion, the only course which they could
take. The whole fund at the command of the water com-
mittee was £57,000, and with the knowledge that £33,000
out of that sum belonged to the bondholders, and with
the remembrance upon their minds that the balance was
not more than sufficient for carrying on the working ex-
penses of the water committee, they could not, as honest
and honourable men, vote the payment of such sums.
They were guided in coming to this decision by the fact
that this was only the first of a series of bills which would
afterwards be presented, if that one had been paid. With
reference to the Vulcan Company, the only application
made to them for money which they had a right to pay
was for the £230 alluded to, so that when Mr. Wilson
complained of repeated applications being made, he (Mr.
B.) was at a loss to know to what he referred. He told
the Council that the water committee had not been placed
in the unpleasant position of refusing payment but once,
and the reason that payment was refused was because the
payment of that sum would have been made the founda-
tion of other demands. They had to pay for a railing
round Mr. Holt's property at Kensington, a matter,
though necessary, which should have been done long
since : they had to meet the engagements for Allen's
,pipes, and they had to pay for the repairing of the faulty
pipeage of the town, which was as much, in conjunction
with the ordinary management, and the supplying of new
mains where wanted, as they could meet out of their
funds. The Council would therefore perceive from
the proceedings before them that if high pressure be put
on their pipes it burst them. Ile, like Mr. Harbord, was
anxious to know -where the line should be drawn between
the Old Committee and the Special Committee—where
the duties of the one ceased and the other began.; and he
could assure the Couucil that he would not be one to pass
that line when once it was defined. (Hear, hear.) Nor
would he thwart the committee -in any way, but would
steadily pursue that course which he thought best for the
community at large. (Hear, hear, hear.) He was only
anxious to know what each committee was to consider as
the-tine of its duty. He understood it this way—that the
present Water Committee were to 'have the whole of the
rental and the whole of the proceeds of the water estate ;
and if so, and as he had shown that the whole of these
proceeds were already absorbed by payments which were
obligatory upon them, he wished to ask if the entire ex-
penditure of bringing water from a distance would not fall
upon the borough estate ? He believed that they had the
power already to make repairs to the extent of £30,000,
such as laying dawn the new main from Kensington, cm-
, structing the cooling ponds at Windsor, increasing the
supply at Green-lane, and other matters: but with their
crippled means the committee did not think it right to go
on without the advice of the Council. He did not con-
sider that it would be safe for the committee to borrow
.X 30,000, without the advice of the Council, as he believed
that their present security would not be good enough
for some time. He was happy to hear that the special
' committee had not yet .net; and he hoped that some
gentleman of that committee would throw some light
upon that question.
The MAYOR.—I am not aware that the committee have
met.
Alderman HORSFALL.—Oh yes, we have met.
Mr. BENNETT observed that he was fearful, seeing the
Deputy Town-Clerk, Mr. Driffield, out of his place, that
more notices were being served on the landowners; but
from the known respectability and high honour of the
gentlemen composing the committee, he hoped that
would not be the case. In conclusion, he begged to
second the confirmation of the proceedings.
Mr. PARKER said that, as the 'Water Committee had
dwindled from eleven to five, and, as they had been vir-
tually superseded by a Special Committee of the Council,
be should like to see them do what he himself would have
done under the circumstances—namely, throw up his
commission. (Hear, hear, hear.) He believed that he
was the only consistent and original opponent of the Pike
scheme then in the Council—for he was one of a minority
of three who had opposed it from the beginning. (Hear,
hear.) He thought that Mr. Harbord took upon himself
more power than was delegated to him, or to any chairman
of a committee, by the Council—when he talked as " I,
the chairman of the Water Committee, I this, that, and
the other thing." (Laughter.) A chairman of a com-
mittee should be merely the organ of the body over whom
he presided, and in Council should consider himself merely
as a member of the general body; but when a gentleman
got up and said, " I am the chairman" of this committee,
or that committee, he was ignorant of what his duties
ought to be. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) He (Mr.
Parker) had always fought against the Pike scheme,
although some of their popular men had shown the white
feather; and he had no hesitation in saying that the men
who were now the vox populi were the very men who
allowed the Pike scheme to be carried. (Hear, hear,
hear.) Ho considered that battle lost now, and thought
that the recommendation of the Water Committee, instead
of throwing oilupon the troubled waters, only tended to
create greater agitation than before. On the present
occasion, then, he would vote against the confirmation of
the proceedings.
Mr, S. liot,mg said that it was high time that all fur.