View report page

49
WATER-SUPPLY.
most of necessity to require a single direction and
control. House-drainage pre-supposes water-supply;
water-supply pre-supposes house-drainage;
the efficiency of either implies their mutual adaptation;
just as the circulation of blood within an animal
body implies uninterrupted continuity of arteries
and veins, each harmonising with the uses of the
other, to ensure the efficiency of the whole. But
while the works of drainage executed under your
orders lose much of their sanitary usefulness for
want of an effectual water-supply, your Honourable
Court has no power of interference in the matter,
closely associated as it is with the performance of
your other functions. These anomalies would be
removed, and a most beneficial power over the distribution
of water would be vested in the hands of
your Commission, if in the renewal of your Act of
Parliament, you procured authority to represent the
citizens in this matter. All the advantages which
could possibly be gained by competition, together
with many benefits which no competition could ensure,
would thus be realized to the population under
your charge; if, namely, a clause were inserted in
your Bill, empowering you, at your discretion, to
contract corporately with any person or any company
for the supply of water to the City of London.
In the Public Health Act (passed simultaneously
with yours) an enactment of this nature exists, authorising
local boards of health to "provide their
district with such a supply of water as may be proper