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42
Street, necessitated a review of the Assessment and the
Valuation Committee in April, 1893, through the Vestry
Clerk, placed themselves in communication with the
Secretary and Manager of the Company with a view to
the mains being re-assessed at a proper amount, and it
was suggested that the Company and the Vestry should
mutually agree to an assessment., to remain in force until
the next re-valuation, to which the Secretary of the Company
was understood to have assented. After waiting for some
considerable time for figures relating to the undertaking,
which the Company had promised to give, but had not
done so, the Valuation Committee increased the rateable
value of the mains from £250 to £6,480. Against this
assessment the Company appealed and claimed to have the
rateable value of the mains fixed at £631. The Assessment
Committee of the Westminster Union, having-regard
to the importance of the case, employed a professional
valuer to value the undertaking, which he did as a whole
at £9,500, or £1,145 less than the total value fixed by the
Overseers. On the hearing of the appeal the Company's
Solicitor, without the slightest previous intimation, raised
a technical objection that the Committee had only power to
increase the assessment by the additional value in the current
year as compared with the previous year, and that they had
no right to go back to the quinquennial period. The Assessment
Committee seemed to think that there was something
in the objection referred to, but that the objection was one
which should not have been taken, for they disregarded the
Company's figures and compromised the assessment of
the undertaking as a whole at £7,000 rateable value.
Feeling that the Company had not met the Vestry
n quite a proper spirit, the Vestry Clerk addressed a
communication to the Secretary of the Company on the