Report of the General Board of Health on the administration of the Public Health Act and the Nuisances Removal and Diseases Prevention Acts from 1846 to 1854.

Great Britain. General Board of Health.

Date:: 1854

Credit: Report of the General Board of Health on the administration of the Public Health Act and the Nuisances Removal and Diseases Prevention Acts from 1846 to 1854. 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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$and losses of trading companies arc avoided, so that Local Boards are enabled to afford the supplies at lower rates. Local authorities under the Public Health Act have recently supplied the poorest portion of the population of their district, as above stated, at a cost of less than 1 %d. per week. The total cost of such supply, which is generally constant and at high pressure, including the works within the house, namely, the service pipe, sinks, water-closet, and self- cleansing drains, does not exceed 2\d. per week, which is less than the existing charge for cleansing a cesspool, sinking a well, and keeping a pump in repair. Capitalists have rarely undertaken works for what they deem complex objects, such as those of water supply com- bined with works of drainage, and the interests of trading companies or of their engineers are against the combination of works which may take the supply out of their hands, and put them into those of a public body. If an unprejudiced examination of the new works be made, notwithstanding the imperfections that may yet attach to them,they will be found to exonerate municipal corporations and local administrative boards from the charge of incapacity made against them; to have im- proved the security for good local administration, and to demonstrate that such works may be obtained more efficiently and cheaply, including the proportion of estab- lishment charges, under local public management, by pay- mentfor common and responsible service, than by the motive of a trading profit to be levied on individual necessities. In several instances where water has been supplied by trading companies, for house service and drainage works, the separate management of such companies as commonly con- stituted, has been found to be so jarring and unsatisfactory as to confirm the previous objections to any separate service. We are informed, from the United States, that the general tendency of experience there is in accordance with our own, as to the expediency of not leaving the necessities of the population, with reference to the supply of water, to the chances of trade, or to practical trading monopoly, but of resuming the public rights and duties in this respect, putting them under public and responsible management, and adapting payments to the cost of collec- tion and distribution without any regard to trading profits. One advantage arising in this country from the adminis- tration of such services by a public body for the public$