View report page

41
Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Bill
may be amended by inserting the Council of the
Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworh in the Third
Schedule as a constituent Authority entitled to
elect two Members of the Water Board, and that
Clause 14 of the Bill may be amended as suggested
in the foregoing paragraph numbered 14.
And your Petitioners will ever pray, etc.
20.—The President of the Local Government Board has since
intimated that the claim of the Council for increased representation
could not be admitted, as the Borough did not at present quite
reach the rat o of population and rateable value fixed for the
Boroughs which it is proposed should have two representatives
each, and he pointed out that under clause 26 of the Bill the Local
Government Board would have power to alter the representation
of a Borough on account of the variation of population hereafter.
The Council are of opinion that in view of the facts set out in the
above petition this Borough is entitled to two representatives.
21.—This Council, having further considered the Bill, infor.red the
President of the Local Government Board that the Council was
of opinion that the different water rates should be re-adjusted and
charged on uniform principles throughout London, and that provisions
for securing uniformity of valuation similar to those
contained in the Valuation (Metropolis) Act, 1869 should be introduced
and made applicable to the districts outside the County of
London affected by the Bill. The President informed Mr. Kimber,
the Member for Wandsworth, that such matters as the re-adjustment
of water rates must be left for the consideration of the Water
Board, and that the amendment of the law to secure uniformity
of valuation for assessment would be outside the scope of the
Water Bill, and would be one of the main objects of the proposed
Government Valuation Bill. The following provision (sub-clause
6 of clause 15) was inserted in the Bill in Committee, viz.: —
(6) The Water Board shall not reduce the rates charged for
the supply of water below those in force during the quarter ending
the twenty-fourth day of June, one thousand nine hundred and two,
if such a reduction would or would be likely to cause a deficiency in
the water fund.