TO THE HONOURABLE THE COMMONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED. "The Petition of Toulmin Smith, of Highgate, in the county of Middlesex, Esquire,

Humbly showeth,-That your petitioner is the owner of houses and messuages in Birmingham, in the county of Warwick, and elsewhere in England, contributing to a considerable extent to the local burdens where situated.

"That your petitioner has for many years paid great attention to, and become acquainted with a great number of facts in relation to the Public Health Act and its operation, and the mode of its application.

"That it is the most material point for investigation before the select committee of your honourable house to which the Public Health Bill, 1855, has been referred, to ascertain how the course of inquiry, report, and presentation of provisional orders to parliament for confirmation, practically operates, as heretofore in practice and as proposed by the said bill.

"That your petitioner has this day tendered evidence on these points to the said committee; but the said com. mittee declined to allow your petitioner to enter upon evidence in relation thereto, further than nakedly to state the fact of his objecting to the provisions of the proposed bill bearing thereupon.

"That such naked statement of objection is no evidence at all; and your petitioner is prepared and desirous to enter on evidence in relation to those objections to what is the fundamental and most material part of the said bill.

"That your petitioner feels assured that the declining by the said committee to hear the evidence so tendered, arises solely from the said committee conceiving that evidence on these points is not within their instructions from your honourable house.

"Your petitioner therefore prays that instructions may be given to the said committee to receive evidence, particularly and in full, with all documents relating thereto, bearing upon the points above set forth; and that your petitioner may be heard before the said committee on the said points and inatters.

And your petitioner will ever pray. "March 16.

"TOULMIN SMITH."

The earnest and dispassionate manner in which the proceedings at Lambeth were conducted, and the satisfactory conclusion at which the meeting arrived, after a thorough investigation of the measure before them, cannot fail to produce their effects. Mr. Toulmin Smith deserves much credit for his lucid analysis of the objectionable parts of both bills; he pointed out the arbitrary and oppressive action of the contemplated law, the vagueness and want of precision of the most important definitions, more especially that which applies to the term nuisance, and drew attention to the ruinous effects on the manufacturing energy and enterprise of the country at large, sure to follow the application of the projected scheme. The question is really one for the manufacturing interest.

The attempt to extinguish local self-government will not be more destructive of the welfare of the great towns than the effort equally well directed to control enterprise will paralyse their industrial vigour. A united effort will exterminate these pernicious bills, and ssured the effort will be made by those most intewe feel ested in the question.

M. Berat 26 Mar, 5'5

THE PUBLIC Health BILL, 1855.

The following circular has been prepared and issued by order of the Anti-Central-Legislation Union of Manufac turers, Traders, and Others, for the Defence of Property and Enterprise :

"The title of this bill gives no clue to its actual intention and operation. It will mislead those who, knowing the just dissatisfaction which the Board of Health, under the act of 1848, had incurred, and that parliament, last year, refused to renew that act, thought good faith would be now kept, and any new Public Health Bill be really for the purpose which its name imports; be simple in its provisions, and relieve enterprise from that course of systematic attack which, in addition to the arbitrary means the board took to force its interference upon the most unwilling places, was the most marked characteristic of the late Board of Health.

"The present bill renews every obnoxious feature of the late Board of Health, and adds to these many of much greater obnoxiousness; while it carefully omits the few protections to the public which the act of 1848 did provide.

"The late Board of Health always took the ground of hostility to private enterprise in every form, and sought to engross every one of the legitimate objects of that enterprise under the control of its own central board of functionaries. The present bill makes a wholesale stride in this direction. It threatens the existence of every present, as it will put out of the question the attempt at any future, work of local associated enterprise; while property and private enterprise in every form are brought by it into a state of perpetual uncertainty.

"The bill, after re-constituting the so-called Board of Health, with unlimited and irresponsible powers, proceeds to provide for what it calls the adoption and application of the act. The former has the colour, and merely the colour, of being made voluntary in places. The latter is left as by the act of 1818-viz., that the act can be introduced into any place where the names of a minute minority of the inhabitants (less than 2 per cent.) can be got to a secret 'petition;' a thing that can be managed anywhere, as the proceedings of the late Board of Health have too disreputably illustrated. In addition to this, the Board of Health may, of its own mere pleasure, enforce the act anywhere if the deaths exceed 23 in 1000, a proportion below the usual average of towns, and which is merely, therefore, another colourable condition.

"In the introduction of the act into any place, those protections to the public, trifling though they were, which the Public Health Act, 1848, provided, are by the new bill carefully omitted. The former act required that the reports of inspectors and the provisional orders should be pub. lished in the places to which they refer, and that opportunity of protest should be given. Every one of these provisions is omitted in the present bill. This fact must alone strike every honest man as sufficient proof of the intention and character of the bill. Being contained in the act of 1848, their omission in this bill can only be with the deliberate intention of making the act more arbitrary; and no restoration of the old provisions, as the bill passes through parliament, will alter the proof of the intention of its authors, or lessen the danger which will be permanent if any board of health is allowed to exist. The Board of Health has so contrived that these provisions have been practically evaded, and, except in very rare cases, become of no avail. The inqui ries made, and the publication of reports thereon, are mere shams-mere steps, pro forma, to the getting up of a case for the enforcement of the act. From the very nature

of the circumstances they will always be so. Under the new bill there even need be no inquiry in any case. There is to be no publication of report or provisional order in any case. The mere worthless form of a confirmation of provisional orders by parliament remains as in the act of 1848.

"Not one of the new provisions in this bill, as to the introduction of the act, is of the slightest real value or pro. tection. Some of these are, indeed, gratuitously offensive; as that which provides that an inspector sent down from London by the central board shall be chairman of the meeting in any place, and 'regulate its proceedings,' and 'propose the adoption of the act.' (Compare section 38 and section 16, clauses 6 and 7.)

"It will thus be seen that whatever depends on the introduction of the act depends only on that which it is carefully provided shall be within the arbitrary grasp and control of the central board.

"What does depend on the introduction of the act into any place includes everything in the shape of private property and enterprise. Local boards are to be appointed on an exceedingly narrow and imperfect basis, equally unpractical and unconstitutional in principle; and these local boards are, for a very wide and the most continual range of their nominal duties, to be merely the stalking-horses, without even power of discretion, for small officials and policemen; at the mercy of whose caprice, or attempts at extortion, every man's private home, aud every wan's workshop or manufactory, will be placed. Besides a multitude of other minute interferences that this bill enjoins, it is made imperative by it on every local board to put the Nuisances Removal Act [that is, the very obnoxious bill of the present session] into operation within its district. (See section 88.) Moreover than this, any local board may enter any ground, though not even within their district; and this for the most offensive purposes. (See section 75.)

"All the powers, rights, and provisions contained in or secured by any public local acts are swept away by this bill. (See sections 24, 35, and 43). Parliament is to be entirely superseded hereon, both as to past, present, and future action, by the Board of Health. All past public local acts, which have had the careful consideration and constitutional sanction of parliament, are now to be subject to the mere breath, to be repealed by the secret and irresponsible stroke of the pen, of this central board; no matter what rights of property are involved or violated. All provisional orders' are to need so much only of parliamentary sanc tion as to show that parliament is made the mere registrar of the orders of the Board of Health, without having any real discretion in itself or affording any effective protec1 tion to the public. As to future legislation, this bill proposes to upset parliamentary jurisdiction altogether over the all-important consideration of how far the protection and security which the law gives to individual property and rights shall be made to yield to improvements or enterprises by which it is alleged that a large body of the public will be benefited; for this is the real meaning of local acts and private acts of parliament. There is, in reality, no point in the whole range of parliamentary functions more important-more sacred, it may be said-than this. To attempt to take this out of the hands of parliament, as is the direct object of this bill, is to aim a blow at that which is the fundamental principle of parliamentary life and action in every branch.

"That some alterations are needed in the practical machinery of conducting local bills through parliament may be very clear; but it only shows an utter want of principle to make this the excuse for taking this fundamental jurisdiction out of the hands of parliament altogether. The idea of putting it into the hands of courts of quarter sessions, as this bill proposes, is so preposterous and absurd that it can hardly be necessary to give it a moment's {grave consideration.

"Be it observed that this bill, which comes out under the pretence of the public health, seeks to swallow up every kind of thing. There are water supply, watching, lighting, slaughter-houses, markets and fairs, public pleasure grounds; all these, and all matters and rights that concern or may become involved in any of them, either through any previous local act or under any fresh proposition, are handed over to be dealt with, uncontrolled by parliament or standing orders, by the local board of health and the court of quarter sessions, which latter, it may be remarked, consists, in most towns, of the single person of the recorder.

"What place will there be left for the sense of safety or certainty of property or enterprise anywhere in England, if such a bill is allowed to pass?

"But there is more yet-the rates of any place may, at the pleasure of the central board, be mortgaged to the extent of two years of the assessable value of all the property in the place, to carry out any theoretical schemes or any such purposes as before stated; that is to say, all property is made subject to an arbitrary power of being lowered, without appeal, upwards of one-tenth in value! It is diffi cult to conceive a power more inconsistent either with the security and rights of property, with the healthy scope of enterprise, with the existence of free institutions, or with sound economy.

"The direct control and powers of interference sought to be secured to the Board of Health by this bill greatly exceed anything that the Public Health Act, 1848, ever attempted. The aim, in fact, is, under the false pretext of the public health, to raise up a department which shall be entirely independent of, and superior to, the Home Office, as well as parliament. The central board can require reports, on any matter and in any form it pleases, to be made to it, by any local board, at any time it likes. It can send one of its inspectors down at any time to make what inquiries it likes, and to compel attendance, &c., on oath. It will make an ex parte 'report' to parliament every year, asking for more powers, on its own colour of all facts. There is, in short, no extent of meddling and vexatious interference (amounting, practically, to compulsion) which this bill does not put into the hands of the central board; and of which the past theories and attempts sought to be enforced by that board show, very plainly, what the results will be. The Board of Health seeks, and if this bill pass it will accomplish, the obtaining power and action independent of the executive; superior to and over-riding that of parliament; inconsistent with, and subversive of, any local independence and responsi bility; absolutely destructive, everywhere in England, to all safety, security, and certainty (which alone constitute the fact and being) of property and enterprise."

In our impression of yesterday we published a circular, prepared and issued by order of the AntiCentralisation Union of Manufacturers, Traders, and Others, for the Defence of Property and Enterprise. This document, which is drawn up with remarkable clearness and ability, is intended to point out the direct tendency and effects of "the Public Health" Bill, as well as of the "Nuisances' Removal measure," which may be regarded as its complement, and we commend its perusal to all who are interested in knowing to what extent the general freedom is threatened, and those rights invaded which we have been accustomed to regard as secured by the settled law of the land.

ANTI-CENTRAL LEGISLATION UNION of

MANUFACTURERS, TRADERS, and Others, for the DEFENCE of PROPERTY and ENTERPRISE.-Temporary Offices, 13, St. Benet-place, Gracechurch-street.-There is scarcely a manufacture or trade in England which is not at this moment most seriously endangered by the Public Health, Nuisances' Removal, and Metropolitan Local Management Bills, now before Parliament. Every interest connected with manufactures or trade is necessarily endangered at the same time. All those who conceive the manufacturing interests of England worth maintaining, and all who would desire to promote sound legislation for the public health, are invited immediately to join the above Union. Any information, together with printed outlines of the above Bills, and statements of their effects, may be had on application, either personal or by post, at the offices as above. By order,

CHARLES HEYNE, Secretary.

Elsewhere in our columns will be found an advertisement from the Anti-Central Legislation Union. The opposition to those measures now before Parliament, and to which we have recently so frequently directed attention, has assumed a thoroughly practical shape, and is rapidly receiving accessions from those most interested in arresting those injurious attempts upon manufacturing enterprise made under pretence of providing for the public health. Nor is the movement confined to the metropolis; as we ventured to predict, the provinces have taken the alarm, and the great towns are fully alive to the danger that threatens their best interests, and resolved to defend them by every constitutional effort. The organisation in the metropolis is complete, and the hostility intended determined and uncompromising. We need not say the "Union” has not commenced its labours an hour too soon; in the language of its latest circular, "a direct "attack has been made on the entire manufacturing 66 enterprise of the whole country by the so-called "Nuisances Removal Bill, 1855. This and similar 66 measures, hitherto too little known and heeded "by those whom they so nearly affect until re"sistance is too late, will unquestionably render "it impossible for any one, either engaged in manu"facturing concerns or in any business arising out "of the innumerable trades and other interests con"nected therewith, to feel the least security or "certainty for his property or occupation." We cannot too strongly commend this movement to the serious attention of all who desire to see local rights and privileges respected, or to interrupt that determined progress towards centralisation so perseveringly pursued, so insulting to the national independence, so destructive of those interests on which the national prosperity rests.

DLE

Mi. Berat 6 Apr. 1855.

THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND NUISANCES REMOVAL BILLS.

Yesterday a numerous and influential_meeting of the supporters of the Anti-Central Legislative Union of Manufacturers, Traders, and others, for the defence of property and enterprise, was held at the London Tavern, for the purpose of receiving the report of the committee appointed on the 6th of March last to take such measures as they might deem to be necessary to prevent the Public Health and Nuisances Removal Bills passing into law until deprived of their arbitrary and oppressive clauses. Mr. R. Hills (of Deptford) was called to the chair.

Mr. Toulmin Smith then moved a series of resolutions in furtherance of the objects of the meeting. In support of them he said he was glad to see that the apathy that had been supposed to exist on this subject had not manifested itself, and that the interest on the subject shown by them continued to interest manufacturers, for he had seldom known a second meeting on the same subject to be so well attended as the first. He was not there himself as a manufacturer, but as one of the "others," who by their placard were invited to attend; and if the manufacturers simply opposed the bills because they would affect them, they would, he thought, find little sympathy upon the part of the public; but this was considered required the attention and vigorous action a subject that he of all. That point was particularly dwelt on in the last paragraph of the report which said :-" Great energy and activity are needed, and no inconsiderable expense is necessary in order to make these available. Every man, therefore, who enrols himself as a subscriber helps the end in view and there can be no man in England so far removed from all concern in the safety and security of property and enterprise as not to be personally interested in the attainment of that end." In his opinion, these bills affected all other classes as well as manufacturers, and that every part of the community was interested in them. In fact, there was no one in England whom they did not affect; and the best policy of the manufacturer would be to let the whole community see the way in which they would be affected. It was upon that ground that he took his stand in opposition to the bills. The manufacturers were rich, and could speak for themselves; but the bills affected a vast number of poor throughout the country who could not speak for themselves. If they touched any portion of the community who were unable to speak for themselves, it was their duty to step forward and help them. He was one of those who thought that such things should be done as were essential for the public health, and they should be carried out; but he had a very strong objection to measures for public health being proposed that were not practicable, and thus to stand in the way of those that were practicable. Such measures were proposed by men who had really no care for the public health, so that they could pocket their salaries at the public expense. He was not content that his rights should be interfered with so that his neighbour might wash his hands twice a day instead of once, but there might be a difficulty in doing it at all if the soap-houses were to be destroyed, and if he was told that the liberties of his country were to be sacrificed so that his fellow-men might be kept a little cleaner, he would say, let them hold on to their liberties as their fathers had done in maintenance of the institutions of their country. For himself he could not accept those bills on the dictum of parties that nothing else would do. He was particularly anxious to call the attention of the meeting to the fact that from the first the Board of Health had displayed a spirit hostile to the real interests and enjoyment of property and the putting forth of it had lately enterprise, and yet to his knowledge how very little was known of its operations by those with whom it most interfered. He would then beg to call their attention to a few of the things that had been done by the Board of Health, and by what they had done they might judge of the dangers to which they were exposed for the future. It had attacked private enterprise, from first to last. Let them see how they had attacked water companies, without waiting to see whether they would fulfil the duties imposed upon them by acts of parliament. The gas companies had been attacked, and the Board of Health, in one of their reports, had even asserted that it was im

come

possible for any one but themselves to supply them properly. In the same way that they had attacked gas and water companies they had even gone to sepulture and burial to interfere with private enterprise, and said in one of their reports that it was impossible for any persons to properly bury the people of England but themselves. They actually proposed to do so, and that trading companies, as they sneeringly called them, should not be allowed to bury the people any longer. With that sneer they said that public enterprise should no longer interfere with such subjects. (Mr. T. Smith here read from a report issued by the Board of Health a passage as to burials in which it was recommended that all burials should be considered to be illegal unless they took place with the sanction of the Board of Health.) In every way they interfered with private enterprise, and he might mention the case of the town of Ipswich, where they wanted to establish a private cemetery, and the bill for that purpose passed its first reading in the House of Commons; but the Board of Health interfered and the bill was rejected, and in various other ways had they interfered to prevent that from being effected which they pretended was their great object. They had interfered to prevent companies giving a better supply of water in different localities and they had interfered with drainage. They were always, like the old Athenians, running after some new thing, and failing in them all. In the case of Croydon their pipe system of drainage had proved to be a great failure, and after the people were burdened with rates to the extent of 9s. 6d. in the pound all the work had to be done over again. They wanted also to interfere with insurance companies, upon the ground that they tended to engender crime and immorality, weakened any proper forethought, and increased the number of fires (a laugh). Therefore they proposed to put all these matters under government control. Their object in these various bills was to ask for further powers of a summary nature, and so long as they were allowed to go to parliament year after year they would do so, until they got the entire control of all private enterprise and freedom on which their property depended. Every year they sought greater powers than they had before. The committee of the House of Commons that had been appointed to consider the subject were the least familiar with it, and had refused to hear evidence that could have been given by different parties from the country, where its effects would be materially felt, which he considered to be altogether inconsistent with fair play and an honest inquiry. The bills were so long that it was impossible that they could be understood, for with 200 or 250 clauses, members of the House of Commons had not time to read them, while the people in the country did not understand them. He held in his hand numerous letters from different parts of the country, all complaining of the want of information upon the subject. He had received one letter from the town clerk of Saffron Walden, in which it was stated that the corporation of that town concurred with them in their opposition to the bill. He had received several others, which he would not take up the time of the meeting by reading. He had also received two letters from Birming ham, which some would think a place of some importance, in a manufacturing point of view, and entitled to some attention, both of which were utterly opposed to the bills. One of the letters from Birmingham contained an enclosure, which had been widely circulated there; and as it was most pertinent to the matter in hand he would beg the indulgence of the meeting to be allowed to read it. It was as follows:

66 NUISANCES' REMOVAL BILLS. "With double taxation, with increased and increasing poor's rates, with decreasing trade, additional burdens, and diminished resources, is such the season by legislative enactments to cripple commerce, injure trade, and stop manufactures; yet such will be the results if the proposed bills are carried into law; at such a time, and under such cir cumstances, should not the acts of the legislature rather be to encourage trade, protect commerce, and foster enterprise?

"With the wanton waste of millions of money, the shameless sacrifice of life, and reckless disregard to human comforts shown to our brave but unfortunate soldiers, Iwith, I say, the evidence of such mismanagement, now known in every quarter, facts familiar alike to the highest and the lowest, and all this the effects of official neglect or incapability, can a sensible man, or any sensible body of men, believe that the intention of bills, framed as the

Nuisance Bills are, can be intended for the comfort, health, or advantage of the community? Do the actual promoters of such bills themselves believe it? Are not such bills intended as jobs to create places, pensions, and patronage?

"If sanitary measures are to be adopted upon a large and efficient scale, would it not be well for the gentlemen feeling honest interest in the same to visit the crowded courts and allies of the metropolis and other large townshouses surrounded by houses, twenty perhaps or more in the same court, that court badly ventilated, badly drained, many families in one house and many persons in each family, with one or at best two water-closets, and those of the worst description, for the whole masses of human beings thus huddled together. Is it not in such localities and such circumstances that diseases grow and ripen to early and frightful maturity?

Is it not a time when the country must look with the greatest anxiety to the House of Commons, as the guardians of their money, rights, and privileges-is it not a time when every member should be called upon to watch well the interests of his constituents, and, above all, to guard against the creation of new boards, new places, fresh salaries, pensions, or patronage to prevent appointments of needless and interfering officials? At a time when the country has suffered so much abroad from the effects of official patronage, is it to be expected it will tamely submit to, if possible, those mismanagements at home, and to pay placemen for obstructing the usual course of trade and commeree?

"What do these place-seeking sanitary quacks propose? -to remove from towns manufactories that have existed there for centuries, forsooth, to where? That spot or place is not defined. No trade or manufactory can, under such bills, ever be considered safe. A manufactory requires workmen, workmen require the necessaries of life, tradesmen are required to supply the same; a number of manufactories so situated together, and thus a town is formed. To remove trades and manufactories from their present localities is but to create NEW TOWNS, leaving the old ones to crumble into ruins; what else can be the result of such alterations? and as for the nuisance, if such it be, change of place cannot alter the fact.

"But to the principle at issue, what is a nuisance? The first minister of the Crown has asserted, in his place in the House of Commons, 'What is merit but matter of opinion.' May it not be said, with more truth and sounder judgment, 'What is a nuisance but matter of opinion?' Shall simple matter of opinion occupy the time of the legislature? Is there not more urgent business now claiming attention? Is not the honour of the country-nay, perhaps its very existence as an independent nation-at stake? Let the great evils that do exist, that have been proved to exist, and are known to the whole world by the mitigated term 'mismanagement,' let the ministers of the day and both Houses of Parliament exert their utmost energy to correct those glaring abuses. That done, the country may be led to look with respect and confidence upon other measures. "Manufactures, trade, and commerce have made the British nation great; let not the desire of official patronage injure it by usurping the place of sound reason and common

sense.

"

That was the opinion of the people of Birmingham. While private enterprise had been used to promote the moral and physical condition of the people, an attempt had been made for that purpose by the various bills of the Board of Health, but which had never been accomplished. But the question was, what was to be done, what course was to be taken on this question? and that brought him again to the point that the movement against the measures must be based upon the ground of their general effect upon the public at large; they must cease to look upon Sir Benjamin Hall's bill that had made a little noise amongst a few manufacturers and traders, because it had interfered with their own selfish interes's involved in the question, but as a bill that concerned the interests of every man in England-it was a bill that affected the manufacturer in Bermondsey equally with the resident in Cumberland. As parliament went on year by year the Board of Health got a step in advance. Sir Benjamin Hall had stopped the mouths of all who complained of anything that he said was non-legislation; but that was not enough for them-they wanted to undo some that had been done; to stop and scotch the snake 80 that they might afterwards kill it.

a

To prevent it going further, and then they might, perhaps, return to a more English and constitutional system. There had been a system going on for a few years called law reform, for the purpose of giving places to the nominees of government, and doing away with the trial by jury, and they had remained apathetic-they had let the system go on, and had thus made a rod for their own backs-they had remained idle, while the poor man had his trial by jury taken from him-they had neglected to maintain their rights, and he hoped that they would smart for it. The one thing led to the other. The destruction of the poor man's rights had given handle to their schemes, and it was only when they were touched themselves, that they came forward. He trusted the bills would pass entire unless the manufacturers would oppose them alogether as they were now introduced, not to be deluded by two or three altered clauses, but to set themselves in opposition to all the others. It would not do for them to go with bated breath and ask for the alteration of a few clauses, but boldly to show that they understood these bills would affect the whole people of England, and make them to understand that they would not allow a clique that had got place under government, whose study it was to get up cases, to force on such measures, and that the people would not submit to them. Let them remember that the only way to achieve success was to consider that the interests of all affected, for these bills attacked one of the fundamental principles laid down in Magna Charta, and if that was destroyed it at once attacked their liberties and gave them no opportunity of that they had hitherto possessed, the free exercise of industry and enterprise. (The learned gentleman was frequently applauded during his address, and sat down amidst loud cheers.)

Mr. Francis seconded the motion.

Report in M. Post 6p.

were

Mr. TOULMIN SMITH proposed a series of resolutions, to the effect that the meeting was fully impressed with the urgent necessity of sanitary improvement, but that many of the clauses of these bills were arbitrary and oppressive, and interfered with the free scope of private enterprise and security of property. He said that, though the chairman alluded to the apathy of the manufacturers, the presence of so large a meeting as was then assembled showed that the interest of the subject had not died out, and that the question before them required prompt and vigorous action. He wished to address himself particularly to the last paragraph of the report, which stated that no man in England was so far removed from all concern in the safety and security of property and enterprise as not to be personally interested in putting a stop to the misIchievous system of legislative experimenting. It was his firm opinion that those who took up a false ground, who merely looked at the clauses of these bills which affected themselves, did not look upon the whole of the bills in the larger sense of their effects upon the entire community. (Hear.) They should show that the welfare of the whole community was involved as well as that of a particular class, for no class in a nation could be attacked without the whole suffering either directly or indirectly. (Hear.) That was the only ground on which he consented to take any part in opposing these bills. He had stated his opinion eight or nine years ago, that although the bills of this kind affected a particular class directly, they still more nearly affected the poor, who were not manufacturers, and had no one to speak for them. (Hear, hear.) As the resolution stated, they desired to see everything that was essential to the public health carried out. But one of the strongest objections he had to the Public Health

Bill was

that, whilst it did not contain that which was practicable in the interest of the public health, and which, if carried out, would be highly beneficial in its result, it led people to beeve in the dogmas propounded by those who had little care

1

for the public health except in so far as it created places and salaries for themselves at the public expense. What he objected to was not anything that would promote the public health, but the means that were proposed in this bill for carrying out that object. He would not be content to have his house invaded and the trial by jury discarded, in order that his neighbour might be able to wash his hands twice a-day instead of once. (Hear, hear.) If they were called on to decide whether the liberties of the country were to be sacrificed in order that men might be a little cleaner, he should say, let us hold to our liberties, and let people do as their forefathers did in the matter of washing. But he maintained that the public health would be best promoted by keeping to their liberties and free institutions. He would not be content to upset the liberties of the people because some persons said that nothing else would do in order to carry out this bill. He believed that other things would do. He was particularly anxious to call the attention of those present to the fact, that the Board of Health were pursuing a course which was opposed to the real enjoyment of property and to the display of private energy and enterprise. They seemed always desirous of setting up something new. They first attacked the water companies. It was clear that what they should have done was to see that these companies had fulfilled their responsibilities under the act, not to attack the system of private enterprise, to which they owed everything they had in this respect. (Hear, hear.) They pursued the same course with respect to the gas companies, and with respect to sepulture. The Board of Health wanted them to believe that was impossible for any one else to bury the people of England, except the Board of Health, and that the trading companies (which they always sneered at) should not be allowed any longer to interfere in this matter. In 1848 they were to have a new system of drainage and house supply of water. Something new was to be done, and in a new way. Like the Athenians they hated everything that was old, but they failed in everything they attempted. If their system of water supply had been carried out, what would have been the condition of London in the late severe weather. The large pipes they were to use would inundate every house in the metropolis. The public drainage was a complete failure in Croydon. In some places the rate was 9s. 6d. in the pound, and the work had to be done over again.! (Cheers.) Yet they were always asking for more powers, and they would never cease doing so as long as the people let them. The present bills were an illustration of that, for they asked for greater powers than they ever had before. The committee appointed to consider these bills was composed of members who were the least familiar with the subject, although the House of Commons had many members who knew something of the subject. That committee refused to hear the evidence that bore most directly on the means by which the act could be carried out. That was a most important element, because it showed that the report had been got up by means entirely inconsistent with fair play and honest means of inquiry. (Hear, hear.) The chairman had very properly alluded to the length of these bills. They were so long that it was impossible for persons who had other business to attend to to read them and understand them. He had received a great number of letters complaining of the difficulty of getting information about these bills. He had letters from Saffron Walden and Pomfret complaining of the measure. That very day he received two letters from Birmingham, which showed that that important manufacturing town was fully alive to the dangerous tendency of these measures. He complained that manufacturers went to the Government, saying that they would be satisfied if this and the other