Metropolitan water supply, present and future ; in four letters to the "Daily News" newspaper / by John Loude Tabberner.

  • Tabberner, John Loude.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Metropolitan water supply, present and future ; in four letters to the "Daily News" newspaper / by John Loude Tabberner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    they so obtained. The commercial competition which the legislature, in its inexperience, presumed a water supply would bear, the companies practically discovei'ed would ruin them, if they kept faith with the legislative spirit which had dictated the granting of their several acts; so, in self-protection, they entered into a mutual, and amongst themselves, legally binding arrangement, with which, it must be constantly and unequivo- cally borne in mind, the legislature had nothing to do, to divide the metropolis into several distinct territories, apportion- ing one to each under stringent covenants and penalties not to interfere with each other; so that within its own respective and exclusive district each company might charge whatever amount of rates upon the public the shareholders chose in satisfaction of their own selfish purposes, and supply any given quantity of water, more or less, as it was convenient, and of any quality, however impure, without any fear that the inhabitants would obtain relief from this unprecedented and intolerable combi- nation by seeking another source of supply*. The legislature never could have contemplated, or even thought it possible, such an arrangement as this would ever be entered into, to the literal destruction of the social freedom of the inhabitants, or even the shadow of such an abominable coalition would have been carefully provided against; and the public would have been protected from the indiscretions and inconvenient rivalry of the companies at one time, and their oppressive usurious and imcontroUable exactions at another. Here, then, is the point at which it must be decided, as to how the present monied position of each company has been acquired; how the vested interest of each have been esta- blished, and how secured. They cannot claim a prescrijjtive position. They can only contend for a commercial standing, subject to the same influence of competition as they them- selves washed against each other from 1810 to 1820. Their vested interests in the water supply of the metropolis have un- * The power and vested influence of the existing companies was such as to buy up any new project, or to prevent any neio company getting a bill through parliament.