Report of the committee to the members of the Association, on Lord Lincoln's Sewerage, Drainage, &c., of Towns' Bill.

  • Health of Towns Association (London, England)
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the committee to the members of the Association, on Lord Lincoln's Sewerage, Drainage, &c., of Towns' Bill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/130 (page 15)
    18. With respect to the provisions of the Bill for initiating inquiry into the condition of any town or district, it appears to be inexpedient to restrict the initiation of plans of improvement to the Inspector. As the Bill is at present shaped, it assumes (page 92) that no plans of im¬ provement, or none worth attending to, will be initiated within the town or district. This may frequently be the case, but it will not be invariably so : on the contrary, the examination of plans suggested by others, may possibly become a very important part of the Inspec¬ tor’s duty. It is submitted, therefore, that the Bill should assume that plans of improvement may be initiated within the locality, and that it should provide “ That the Inspector shall examine any plans and esti¬ mates of works for the better drainage and supply of water within the boundaries of the district in question; and if upon view and survey of such district it should appear to* him that such plans are imperfect, to supply deficiencies, or, if wholly inapplicable, he shall prepare other plans; or if no plans have been prepared, then he shall prepare such new plans and estimates, with a report.” 19. With regard to the machinery proposed by the Bill for the elec¬ tion of Boards of Commissioners for carrying into effect the provisions of the Act, it is submitted that there is no sufficient reason for the de¬ viation from the scale of property-qualification and mode of electing Poor Law Guardians. By the mode of election proposed in the Bill, the electors are taken out of their business to attend the poll clerk at the polling-place—an inconvenient and expensive mode of election, which will practically throw the election into the hands of those whose time is of the least value ; whereas by the distribution of voting-papers, and the collection of those papers by responsible officers calling at the houses of the electors, it is found that large numbers are enabled to vote who cannot conveniently, and will not willingly, go to distant polling-places. If the mode of election now in use throughout the Poor Law Unions were adopted—as it is submitted it might be by simple reference—the length of the Bill would be very materially diminished. 20. There is another subject to which your Committee would beg to direct particular attention. It appears to your Committee that the Bill as it at present stands embodies a large practical and fundamental error which has been fully pointed out and earnestly insisted on by great numbers of witnesses, namely, the error of making a numerous Initiation of plans should not be confined to the In¬ spector. Mode of elect¬ ing Boards of Commission¬ ers. Commission¬ ers should supervise not execute works.