View report page

223
above, with the effect that, in their Report (1885), the
Commission recommended that the Companies be deprived
of the summary power to cut-off the water supply. Your
Vestry supported a Bill brought in by Lord Camperdown
(1885) intended to settle the question, but the Bill was
thrown out in the Commons. In 1887 a very useful measure,
Water Companies (Regulation of Powers), was introduced by
Mr. Forrest Fulton and became law: your Vestry petitioned
the House of Commons in its favour. It is an Act to "limit
the powers of the Water Companies to cut-off the tenants'
water supply where the rate is paid by the landlord." It
makes provision for treating the water-rate as a debt to be
recovered—primarily, after notice to pay—from the occupier,
who is entitled to deduct the amount paid to the Company
out of the rent due, or that may next become due from him,
when the owner, and not the occupier, is liable, by law or
agreement with the Company, for the payment of the rate,
which is to be a charge on the dwelling-house in priority to
all other charges affecting the premises. The Act, therefore,
as regards a very large number of houses gives effect to the
views expressed in my Reports of 1883 and subsequently.
The subject again came before your Vestry, and was
reported on by me in my eleventh Report for 1890, when it
was resolved, upon the recommendation of the Law and
Parliamentary Committee, that a communication be
addressed to the Local Government Board, expressing
approval of the principle laid down in a memorial addressed
to that Board by the Poplar Board of Works, to the effect
that "the Water Companies should not, on any grounds, be
empowered to cut-off the water supply from any occupied
premises." The Poplar Board in their memorial, copy of
which was sent to the several Sanitary Authorities, whose
co-operation was invited, referred to the frequency with
which the supply of water to a dwelling is cut off in consequence
of a defect existing in the fittings governing the