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Mr. Clarke and his tiny committee. Yet, judged on its merits, his scheme
was not without its supporters both in the Board and the parish generally.
On the other hand there had all along been plenty of genuine disbelievers
in the irrigation idea and to strengthen their following there was now
the alarm engendered by the immense costs of the proposed sewage farm
(the higher figure mentioned in connection with this one project was equal
to the Board's entire expenditure on capital works during the previous
twenty years), and the fact that the whole affair smacked of a coup d'etat.
The Board and the ratepayers were at once thrown into two sharply divided
and fairly evenly matched camps, an "irrigationistf”, party under Mr. Clarke
and a "non-irrigationist" party under Dr.. Hall.
Mr. Clarke had manoeuvred himself into a strong position. His claim
to have been vested with authority by the Board might be a little dubious
but he could point to the urgency of the whole question, to the absence
of any alternative plan on the opposition's part, to the approval given
to his scheme by the Home Off ice inspector and to its favourable reception
by the London press; the Standard for example, wrote of "the gentlemen
who are styled with irony Tottenham Local Board of Health and who have
polluted the Lea for fifteen years in defiance of an injunction of the
Court of Chancery are at last about to give up their old slovenly ways of
poisoning people by the thousand. We are glad to learn that they are
showing a new spirit and are about to apply a plan for irrigation which
promises well".
For Dr. Hall and his "non-irrigationist" colleagues on the Board the
situation was embarrassing Though in a slight majority they were unable
to find any constitutional means of checking Mr. Clarke and his wayward
Sewage Committee. Nordid they dare to appeal to the Home Secretary
either to restore the Board's authority or to oppose the Committee's Local
Bill for his office was known to be biassed in favour of irrigation and
it was said openly in the press that if he was approached "he was most
likely to take the whole question out of the Board's hands and compel the
Parish to take an elaborate irrigation scheme, regardless of the costs".
One incidental effect of the extraordinary position was a prompt
crumpling up of all the Board's longstanding resistance to the pressure
of the ratepayers for an increase in the membership. Here was an obvious
way, it seemed, to measure the strength of the two parties in the parish
and to ease the tension between them in the Board room. The next ordinary
annual election lay six months ahead, but if the Board was enlarged
there would have to be an immediate election for new members, and one or
other party it was argued was sure to secure a clear majority A formal
application for an increase of the membership to twelve was lodged with
the Home Secretary His approval was soon forthcoming, but the Board's
hopes of a quick solution to the deadlock were dashed when it transpired
that Parliament was overloaded with business and "the necessary Provisional
Order could not be confirmed until the next session", so that a
year might easily elapse before authority to hold a special election could
be given. For the "non-irrigationistfe" however, there was the minor