View report page

57
authority, and that the time has arrived when competing
companies, the result of private enterprise, should no longer be
left in possession of a monopoly of the primary necessity of
existence.
Since writing above, the Government have intimated that a
Royal Commission would be appointed to consider the whole
subject of the Metropolitan Water Supply, together with the
report of the London Water Commission, and the President of
the Local Government Board, in answer to a question in the
House of Commons, stated that the terms of the reference would
direct the Commission to inquire and report (1) whether, having
regard to financial considerations, and to the present and prospective
requirements as regarded water supplied within the limits
of the supply of the Metropolitan Water Companies, it was
desirable, in the interests of the ratepayers and water consumers,
that the undertakings of the water companies should be acquired
and managed, either (a) by one authority, or (b) by several
authorities, and, if so, what should be the authority or authorities,
and to what extent physical severance in regard to supply of the
several companies should take place. They would also be asked
to say—(1) whether any division within the limits of supply of
the companies was practicable and desirable, and if so what were
the legal powers necessary to give effect to any such arrangement;
and (2) if the undertakings were not so acquired, whether
additional power of control should be exercised by the local or
other authorities; and, if so, what those powers should be; and
(3) whether it would be practicable to connect any two or more
of the different systems of supply of the eight Metropolitan
Companies; and, if so, by whom and in what proportion should
the cost of connection be borne, and what were the legal powers
necessary.
Public
Health
(London)
Act, 1891.
The procedure of the Public Health Department is
almost entirely based upon the provisions of the
Public Health (London) Act, 1891, which consolidated