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was to have 48 hours' notice of the Council's intention to collect in case of his
default, and at his expense.
WATER SUPPLY.
The Metropolitan Water Board took over, in 1904, the control of the
public water supplies provided by eight independent water companies and two
urban district councils in London and certain of the surrounding areas. The
Water Board is responsible for the public water supply of an area of 558 sq. miles
extending from Hertford in the north to Westerham in the south, and from
Northfleet in the east to Hounslow in the west; it includes a few urban and many
rural districts in the outer ring of Greater London. The revenue of the Water
Board is mainly derived from charges—controlled by Act of Parliament—
made for domestic and other supplies; its capital debt is met by Metropolitan
Water Stock, for the issue of which the Act of 1902 provided. Sinee 1908-9
there has been an annual deficiency, which grew from £224,153 in 1915-16 to
£964,852 in 1919-20; the deficiency of the Water Fund is made good under the
Act by an apportionment on the rates of the boroughs and districts of the area
controlled by the Water Board. It was the rapid growth of this deficiency
and the increasing burden on the rates of the contributory areas which led,
in 1919, to the institution by the Ministry of Health of a Departmental Committee
to enquire into the provisions and effect of the Metropolitan Water Act,
1902. In 1892 Lord Balfour's Commission, and in 1897 Lord Llandaff's
Commission, estimated the increase of population which was likely to occur
in London during the on-coming forty years. The reservoir accommodation
provided by the Water Board was planned in accordance with the reports of
these Commissions; but in 1911, as a consequence of the census, which showed
that the anticipated rate of increase had not been attained, the proposed extensions
were curtailed. The existing storage accommodation consists of 11,524
million gallons nett (12,587 gross). The engineer to the Water Board estimates
that in a maximum period of continuous drought (a repetition of the 142
successive dry days of 1899) the present storage, together with the supplies
available for abstraction from the Thames, the Lea, and the New River, and
from wells, would permit an average daily supply of 287.9 million gallons.
This figure must be compared with the average daily call on the Board during
the 142 days of maximum demand in 1919—namely, 291.3 million gallons;
if a drought like that of 1899 were to coincide with the period of maximum
demand, there would be an average daily deficit of 3.4 million gallons. By
new works, in progress or in immediate contemplation, the service reservoir
capacity will be increased by almost 7,000 million gallons nett; when these
new reservoirs and certain new wells are in use, the average daily supply in
times of drought will be 338.5 million gallons—enough to supply a population
of, roughly, eight millions, with water at the rate of 42.63 gallons a head a
day, which was the average daily demand for each person among an estimated
population of 6,832,967 in 1919.