View report page

222
water supply if the rate is not paid. Such a power cannot be
safely entrusted to any commercial body, having regard to
the importance of the water supply in relation to the public
health. In 1884, a striking exercise of this power on the part
of one of the Companies supplying Kensington, by which 80
people in a mews were deprived of the supply for which they
had paid the landlord in their weekly rent—he, however, not
having paid the rate—led to communications being made
by your Vestry to the Local Government Board and to the
several 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 of cutting-off the supply
of water from a house for non-payment of the rate should be
taken away from the Companies, and 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 think fit to enforce their
right to prepayment.*
In 1882 I brought the subject before your Vestry and a
resolution was passed, on the recommendation of the Works
and Sanitary Committee, to the effect:—
" That the sections of the (Water) Acts conferring on the Water Companies
the power of cutting-off the water from premises should be
repealed, such other powers, to enable the Companies to recover rates,
or make good fittings, being substituted, as to the wisdom of Parlia
men I shall be deemed equitable and fitting."
Nothing came of it, however, at that time, or on some other
occasions, supported though the action of your Vestry was
by other Sanitary Authorities.
Advantage was taken of the sitting of the Royal Commission
on the Housing of the Working Classes, to send to
every member of the Commission a copy of my Reports, and
the correspondence on the cutting-off case adverted to
* Vide Monthly Reports, 1 and 2, February 1st and March 1st, 1883,