View report page

191
"9. The price of issue of the stock to be raised will in all cases be settled by the Governor
of the Bank of England. It will be sold subject to the Standard Auction Clauses.
" 10. Any premiums will be used in reduction of the authorised amount. Powers to
redeem the stock at par at the end of 25 years have been inserted. The Sinking Fund Clause
has been adapted to all the money raised in each case.
"11. In the Staines Reservoirs Bill a clause has been inserted, to the effect that in the
event of a sale of any of the three subscribing companies within seven years from the passing
of the Act to any public body or trust, the advantages conferred by this Act, shall not he
deemed to have enhanced the value for purposes of sale of any of the three companies obtaining
that Act. A clause has also been inserted bringing the Staines Reservoirs under the auditors
appointed by the London Water Act of 1871.
"12. During the course of their inquiry your Committee have frequently had their
attention drawn to paragraphs Nos. 176, 177, and 180 of the Report of the Royal Commission
on the Water Supply of the Metropolis, dated 8th September, 1893. No regulations yet exist,
as recommended by the Royal Commission, as to the processes deemed necessary before water
is in a fit condition to be supplied to the consumer. No Statutory regulations applying to all
Metropolitan water companies are in force as to the periods for pumping, nor as to the proper
appliances and regulations for the subsidence and filtration of water.
"13. The water examiner, whilst treated with the greatest courtesy by the water
companies, has no legal right of entry, or power to check the quantities taken out of the rivers
and springs as reported to him by the companies, or the quantities delivered into the main for
the supply of consumers.
"14. Whilst it is practically proved by the low rate of mortality from typhoid fever in
the Metropolis (Frankland's Report, page 145,1894-95) that care is taken to ensure a good and
wholesome supply of water, your Committee submit that where the health of so enormous a
population confined in so comparatively small an area, is concerned, no executive Government
ought to delay dealing with these most important questions. As your Committee have
elsewhere pointed out, London must be supplied under any circumstances for several years to
come, and probably in future in great measure, from the present sources of supply, and therefore,
in any event such regulations as the above-named paragraphs recommend are imperatively
necessary, and cannot be delayed without some risk to the public health.
"15. Your Committee would with great deference point out that the present position of
the London water supply is not in accordance with the public interest
"16. By the now established mode of issuing all new stock by auction, and by theapplication
of the sinking fund to all moneys required by the companies for their further
development, they have no longer the stimulus of remuneiation, which is one of the wholesome