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169
In 1885, a striking exercise of this power by one of the Companies
in Kensington, in depriving the people (80 in number)
occupying a Mews, led to communications being made to the
Local Government Board and to the Sanitary Authorities,
which, by drawing public attention pointedly to the subject,
contributed to bring about a partial remedy by legislation. I
had for some years previously contended that the power should
be taken from the Companies; that they should be left to
their remedy like other traders, the rate being treated as a
debt to be recovered—if they did not enforce the right of prepayment—every
facility being given to them for the purpose.
The Royal Commission on the Housing of the "Working
Classes in their report (1885) recommended that the Companies
be deprived of the summary power to cut-off the water supply.
Your Yestry supported a Bill brought in by Lord Camperdown
(1885) intended to settle the question. It was thought that
the Companies had had their own way too much in moulding
the Bill in Committee of the Lords, and it was thrown out in
the Commons. In 1887 a very useful measure, Water Companies
(Regulation of Powers) Act, was passed (your Vestry
petitioned the House of Commons in favour) which, as respects
houses, the water rate of which is paid by the landlord, precludes
the Companies from cutting off the supply (for which
poor people pay in their rent), but gives them very ample
powers to enforce payment of their claims.
Professor Frankland's Report.—The report on the
water supply of the Metropolis prepared for the RegistrarGeneral
by Professor Frankland, is published, as usual, in the
Annual Summary. It sets out the results obtained in monthly
examination of the water supplied by the eight Companies,
three of which—Grand Junction, West Middlesex, and Chelsea
—supply Kensington. The results obtained in a similar
periodical examinations of the water supplied by the Colne Valley
Water Company and by the Tottenham Local Board of Health,
are included for the purpose of comparison. The high quality