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Board within that period. The bye-laws of the several Sanitary
Authorities were based upon a draft submitted by the
Board, with the view to secure substantial uniformity for the
entire Metropolis. A difficulty, however, arose, due to the
fact that the Council, and each of the 39 Sanitary Authorities,
have power to make bye-laws for certain practically identical
purposes, thus leading to overlapping. The confirming power
of the Local Government Board will doubtless be so used as
to harmonise the bye-laws to be framed by the Council
on the one hand, and by the several Sanitary Authorities on the
other; and with the view to secure practical if not verbal identity
between the 39 codes to be framed by those Authorities.* By
this time, probably, most persons will be agreed that it would
have been well, had Parliament given effect to the original
intention of the framers of the Act, viz., by authorizing the
County Council to make all bye-laws, subject to a reference to
the Sanitary Authorities in respect of those it will be their
duty to enforce, and with the right of appeal to the confirming
Authority in case of disagreement between those bodies. This
was the course I always advocated, and in any amendment of
* Whilst this report was passing through the press, a circular letter was received
from the Local Government Board intimating that "when the matter" (of a
bye-law) "was one with respect to which the County Council proposed to make
bye-laws, under the powers conferred upon them, it should be excluded from those
made by the Sanitary Authorities, and (the Board) have acted on this principle in
considering the several sets forwarded to them." The Board, moreover, having
considered various amendments to the model clauses issued by them, made by
different authorities, covering the same ground, though differently worded, thought
that "the more convenient course would be for them to revise the model clauses, and
to embody in them such of the suggestions of Sanitary Authorities as they felt able
to accept." Not many such amendments would appear to have proved acceptable.
The Board "suggest that bye-laws" (in the form of the revised model clauses
forwarded) "should be adopted by the Sanitary Authority without further modification"
as they will be able to confirm them; thus the bye-laws would be uniform for
the Metropolis, but practically they will have been made (as well as confirmed) by
the Local Government Board, and not by the Sanitary Authorities. Having regard
to the formalities necessary to be observed before the bye-laws can be submitted for
confirmation, it is obviously impossible that they can come into operation by the
end of June, 1893, the latest date contemplated by the Act.