All this incompleteness as to the extent of the districts drained, and the imperfection in the mode of executing the works, appears from the complaints and evidence given before the Committee to be accompanied by disproportionate and oppressive assessments and extravagant expenditure.
The rates were complained of as levied on property which was undrained, and derived no benefit from them; and by equal assessments on houses which derive benefit by direct communications with the sewers, and on houses which have no communication with them, and only derive benefit from the surface drainage, and in some cases on houses which were unoccupied. These unequal charges, sometimes for long periods, and for large and permanent works, fell upon a fluctuating tenancy. “We should claim,” says one witness, “20 years’ rate from the incoming tenant (122), or we might have sold the premises” (129).
In respect to the existing expenditure, very strong statements of mismanagement were made in the majority of the town districts; but I prefer referring on this topic to the evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Commons. One marked character of the expenditure is the greater amount paid to the clerk of the Board, and for office expenses, than for any skill or science in the superintendence of the work. Thus in the district where the Commissioners, on the example of their own workmen, adjudged that the applications for arching over the sewers on the ground that they created a predisposition to the spread of the epidemic were unfounded, the payments to the clerk of the Board for his salary and office was 750l., assistant-clerk 100l., and three surveyors were paid each 50l. (besides commission on works executed, and a fee of a guinea for communicating with the drain.) In another subdivision the expenses of the clerks, messengers, &c., exclusive of collection, were 15,737l. for 20 years, while for the same period the expense of surveyors, inspectors, and clerks of the works was 14,928l. In another division the tavern expenses for 20 years were 7,935l. In one district the cost of the commission, compared with the beneficial outlay on the works, appeared to be 200 per cent. In regard to another level, it is stated that there was laid out on works the sum of 17,455l. 18s. 10d.; and—
| £. | s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| In working the commission | 9,003 | 18 | 7 |
| Commission on collection | 1,635 | 10 | 9½ |
| Total | £10,639 | 9 | 4½ |
| ======= | == | == |
The proportion of the cost of management to the expenditure on work appears to have been similar in others of these administrative bodies. The Committee stated as a principal defect of these bodies—“The want of publicity and responsibility systematically enforced.” There were several of the trusts in which the Courts have not been open to the public, the right of the ratepayers to inspect the accounts not admitted, and “where consequently a real responsibility in money matters can hardly be said to exist.”
Mr. W. Fowler, a Commissioner, says—
“If they are to go from year’s end to year’s end without being subject to any control, I feel the money will be expended as I believe it now is, and dribbled away, not expended fairly in carrying the ostensible works into execution.”
Another defect resulting from the capricious constitution of these trusts, on which the Committee reported, was the want of uniformity.
“There are no two districts in which the law does not vary, or where, if the law be the same, the commissioners do not interpret some parts of in a different manner.
“Thus, a man having property in Finsbury and in Westminster, or in the City and in the Tower Hamlets, may find himself placed under different systems, and may be led by his knowledge of the regulations of the one district to violate the regulations of the other.”