In a paper “printed for use of Commissioners” (Sept. 7, 1848), entitled “Draft Report on the Surrey Accounts,” emanating from a “General Purposes’ Committee,” I find the following, concerning the parliamentary expenses of obtaining an Act which it was “found necessary to repeal.” The cost was, altogether, upwards of 1800l., which of course had to be defrayed out of the taxes.
“This Act,” says the Report, “authorized an almost unlimited borrowing of money; and immediately upon its passing, in July, 1847, notices were issued for works estimated to amount to 100,000l.; and others, we understand, were projected for early execution to the amount of 300,000l.... Considering the general character of the works executed, and from them judging of those projected, it may confidently be averred that the whole sum of 300,000l., the progressive expenditure of which was stayed by the ‘supersedeas’ of the old Commission, would have been expended in waste.” [The Italics are not those of the Reports.]
The Report continues, “It is to be observed that each of the district surveyors would have participated in the sum of 15,000l. percentage on the expenditure for the extension of the Surrey works. Thus the surveyors, with their percentages on the works executed, and the clerk, by the fees on contracts, &c., had a direct interest in a large expenditure.”
Instances of the same dishonest kind might be multiplied to almost any extent.
After the above evidences of the incompetency and dishonesty of the several district Commissions—and the Reports from which they are copied contain many more examples of a similar and even worse description—it is not to be wondered at that in the year 1847 the district courts were, with the exception of the City, superseded by the authority of the Crown, and formed into one body, the present Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, of the constitution and powers of which I shall now proceed to speak.
Of the Powers and Authority of the present Commissions of Sewers.
In 1847 the eight separate Commissions of Sewers were abolished, and the whole condensed, by the Government, into one Commission, with the exception of the City, which seems to supply an exception in most public matters.
The Act does not fix the number of the Commissioners. To the Metropolitan Commissioners, five City Commissioners are added (the Lord Mayor for the year being one ex officio); these have a right to act as members of the Metropolitan Board, but their powers in this capacity are loosely defined by the Act, and they rarely attend, or perhaps never attend, unless the business in some way or other affects their distinct jurisdiction.
The Commissioners (of whom twelve form a quorum) are unpaid, with the exception of the chairman, Mr. E. Lawes, a barrister, who has 1000l. a year. They are appointed for the term of two years, revocable at pleasure.