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not say anything more upon it. They cannot deny that Walthamstow
and Leyton are very great sinners, and they must not mind
me saying so because the County Council are great sinners also.
The Chairman thinks that this great body can do everything.
Now it does do a very great deal, and I think London ought to be
very much obliged to it for what it does do, but it cannot do everything,
and I don't think it should do all that Mr. Pearce has
suggested. It will be seen at once that as representing the County
of London we have very little power except in regard to the parishes
on this side of the river, but as most of the pollution comes from the
other side it is the duty of the County Council of Essex to take the
work upon its own shoulders. The Conservators of the Eiver Lea have
a duty in the matter placed upon them. I have been looking through
their Act and I find that by one section they are compelled to keep a
certain depth of river, and to pass a certain number of cubic feet
of water down the River daily, and they are liable at the instance
of the sanitary body for prosecution for pollution of the river.
It has been held that the word " premises " used in the Public
Health Act includes a river such as the Lea, and therefore they
might be attacked on that clause that their river is a danger to
public health. But, notwithstanding all that, I have also in my
hand an opinion by an eminent solicitor who says that he doubts
very much whether the London County Council could successfully
prosecute the conservators of the River Lea. Though most things
have been said to-night as to the bad state of the Lea there is one
thing that everybody has omitted, and that is that not sufficient
water is sent down the stream and too much is taken out. The
London County Council in their opposition to the Water Company's
Bill last year succeeded in arriving at a compromise by which the
Company are not allowed to take more out of the river than
previously. It was then said that if more water were passed down
the river it would burst through the lock gates into the Limehouse
Cut. It does seem to me that more stringent laws ought to be
applied, and if they don't exist we must get Sir Andrew Scoble to
assist us. We were told that if they passed more water down the
Limehouse Cut the sides would fall in and the warehouses on each