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delay in effecting loans in respect of which provision had been
made for interest and sinking funds.
The amount payable to the Metropolitan Board of Works on
account of the debt and expenses for the years 1856 and 1857,
and which this Board had been so long fruitlessly endeavouring to
borrow, they at last succeeded in obtaining from the London and
Westminster Bank, their Treasurers, at £5 per cent. interest,
nominally for six months, but the Board do not anticipate that they
will be called upon for its repayment otherwise than by easy instalments,
and they have, therefore, to congratulate the ratepayers
upon having escaped the onerous burden of paying the entire sum,
nearly £7,000, by one rate; and in the meantime, before the repayment
of the amount borrowed can be required, the Board confidently
anticipate that the question of the apportionment of the debts of
the late Commissioners of Sewers (the doubts and difficulties of
which have alone prevented the Board from effecting a permanent
loan), will be definitively settled, and a great reduction be made
in the amount hitherto apprehended as the apportionment for the
Parish of Lewisham.
The apportioned debt upon the Parish of Lewisham, in addition
to the above-mentioned sum, amounts to £21,311 1s. 5d.,
£2,605 10s. 11d. being charged upon that part of the Parish
within the former Greenwich Separate Sewerage District, and
£18,705 108. 6d. upon that part of the Parish within the former
Ravensbourne Separate Sewerage District. These sums form part
of a sum of £200,000 borrowed by the Metropolitan Commissioners
of Sewers from the Rock Life Office, and known as the "Rock
Loan," and comprise the bulk of the debts of the Commissioners of
Sewers in which this District is interested.
This sum of £200,000 was in part expended by the Commissioners
of Sewers in constructing sewerage works in the various
districts throughout the Metropolis (including most of the sewers
constructed by them in the Parish of Lewisham), and in part placed
to the credit of such Districts, and otherwise expended, and its
apportionment between the several parishes under the Metropolitan
Local Management Act has been a hotly contested question
from the constitution of the Metropolitan Board to the present
time. Among others, the neighbouring parishes of Greenwich and
Camberwell were violent opponents of the original apportionment,
but this Board were content with it, as it was universally believed
that if it were disturbed it would be to increase, and not diminish,
the apportionment upon the Parish of Lewisham. Ultimately,
however, the Metropolitan Board were brought to admit that the
apportionment had not been made upon an equitable basis, and the
whole matter was reconsidered, the result being that the apportionment
upon the Parish of Lewisham was increased to £30,526 18s. 2d.,