Debt in

respect of Counters

and part of

debt in respect of Ravensbourne works, re

I. Whereas the metropolitan commissioners of sewers, in exercise of the powers conferred upon them by the Creek Works, Act of the eleventh and twelfth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter one hundred and twelve, did cause to be prepared and did approve of certain plans for the main drainage and sewage interception of the metropolis, and certain sewers and works included in and forming a portion of the plans so prepared and approved were constructed and completed by the said comthe security missioners or by the metropolitan board of works; that of the main is to say, the sewers and works known as the Counters Creek Diversion Works: and whereas the cost of the

distributed

and made payable out of monies

borrowed on

drainage rate (a).

(a) The 181st section of the Metropolis Local Management Act (18 & 19 Vict. c. 120), ante, continues the debts and liabilities of the metropolitan commissioners of sewers a charge upon those districts or parts in which rates would have been levied to meet them in case that Act had continued in force, and directs that the sums becoming payable under or required for payment of such debts and liabilities should be raised in like manner as the expenses of the board in the execution of that Act; and with respect to districts or parts beyond the limits of the metropolis as defined by the same Act, it directs that precepts shall be issued to the overseers of the parishes in which any part within the limits of the parts is comprised requiring payment of the sums necessary to be raised in such part. The debts enumerated in the first schedule to this Act were charged by the metropolitan commissioners of sewers previously to the determination of the commission on certain sewerage districts or levels included within the limits subject to their jurisdiction. These districts or levels were formed with regard to the fall of the ground, the main lines of sewers, and other natural conditions; and they had no reference to the division according to parishes and districts forming the basis of the Metropolis Local Management Act. As the monies required for payment of the former debts had, under the provisions of the last-named Act, to be raised in parishes or parts of parishes, it became necessary that the metropolitan board should apportion those debts among the parishes and parts of parishes constituting the former sewerage districts or levels. This they did in the proportion of the rateable value of the property in the respective parishes and parts of parishes, and except so far as concerns that portion of the debts referred to in schedule (A.) to this Act, which is dealt with by this section, the distribution or apportionment so made by the board is

said works, amounting to the sum of 43,7211. 15s., was defrayed by monies borrowed on certain securities, which securities and monies are included amongst and form part of the securities and monies enumerated in schedule (A.) to this Act, and the debt incurred in respect thereof was charged by the said commissioners upon the following sewerage districts; viz. the Counters Creek, Ranelagh, and Fulham and Hammersmith districts, in certain shares and proportions, and has been apportioned by the

still in force. The reapportionment directed by this section is not to affect the validity of any precepts already issued. The bill for amending the Metropolis Local Management Acts, when first introduced by the metropolitan board, contained a clause by which it was intended to redistribute certain other portions of the debts included in the schedule referred to, and to alter the amounts charged upon certain parishes and parts of parishes. The principle on which the board proposed to proceed was to apportion the debts according to the benefit actually conferred upon parishes, &c., by the works in respect of which they were contracted, so far as it could then be ascertained by an investigation of their locality, nature, and cost. The special committee of the House of Commons which sat upon the bill, having had conflicting evidence before them, were not satisfied of the propriety of the proposed reapportionment, and the clause was ultimately excluded from the bill. The present section deals specially with two sums, one of 43,7211. 158., the cost of the Counters Creek works, and the other 10,000l., a portion of the cost of the Ravensbourne works; and regarding them as having been designed and executed to the extent expressed in the clause as for the benefit, not of particular localities, but of the metropolis at large, it directs that the debts incurred on account of them shall be discharged out of the monies raised under the Main Drainage Act (21 & 22 Vict. c. 104) instead of continuing them a charge on individual districts. Some of the parishes mentioned in the clause are without the limits of the metropolis as at present defined, i. e. Willesden, Acton, Ealing, and Chiswick. See the limits of the metropolitan commission in note (e) to sect. 145 of 18 & 19 Vict. c. 120, ante, p. 106. With respect to these, as well as to the other parishes enumerated, the 5th section of this Act empowers the board to make assessments in respect of unpaid balances of former precepts. The sums, therefore, which may ultimately be found to stand to the credit of particular parishes or parts, will, under the concluding words of the clause, go in reduction of some future assessment.

M

metropolitan board of works, pursuant to the 181st section of the firstly-recited Act, among the several parishes or parts of parishes which heretofore constituted the said districts, that is to say, Paddington, Chelsea, St. Mary Abbott's, Kensington, St. Margaret and St. John the Evangelist, Westminster, Hammersmith, Fulham, Willesden, St. Marylebone, St. George Hanover Square, St. John, Hampstead, Acton, Ealing, and Chiswick: and whereas it is just and expedient that the cost of and incidental to the construction and execution of the said sewers and works, amounting to the sum aforesaid, should be deemed to be part of the expenses of and incidental to the works which the said metropolitan board are by the said Acts of the eighteenth and nineteenth Victoria, chapter one hundred and twenty, and the twenty-first and twenty-second Victoria, chapter one hundred and four, empowered and directed to construct and execute for the improvement of the main drainage of the metropolis, and for preventing, as far as may be practicable, the sewage of the metropolis from passing into the river Thames within the metropolis: and whereas certain other works were executed by the said commissioners, known as the Ravensbourne works, and the cost of such works, amounting to the sum of 26,545l. 16s. 5d., was defrayed out of monies borrowed on certain securities, which securities and monies are included amongst and form part of the securities and monies enumerated in the said schedule (A.) to this Act, and the debt incurred in respect thereof was charged by the said commissioners upon the following sewerage districts, viz., the Ravensbourne and Greenwich districts, in certain shares and proportions, and has been apportioned by the said metropolitan board of works, pursuant to the said firstly-recited Act, among the several parishes and places or parts of parishes and places which heretofore constituted the said districts; that is to say, St. Paul Deptford, Greenwich, Kidbrooke, Lewisham, Camberwell, Charlton, Eltham, and Lee: and whereas the last-mentioned works partly enure to the benefit of the

metropolis at large, and it is just and expedient that a portion of the costs and charges thereof, amounting to the sum of 10,000l., should be deemed to be part of the said expenses of and incidental to the works which the said metropolitan board are empowered and directed to construct and execute under the said Acts of the eighteenth and nineteenth Victoria, chapter one hundred and twenty, and the twenty-first and twentysecond Victoria, chapter one hundred and four: be it therefore enacted, that the debts incurred in respect of the costs and charges of the said Counters Creek diversion works, amounting to the said sum of 43,7217. 15s., and in respect of the said portion of the costs and charges of the said Ravensbourne works, amounting to the said sum of 10,000l., making together the sum of 53,7217. 15s., shall cease to be the special debts and obligations of the said parishes and places and parts of parishes and places, and the same shall be deemed to have become, on the 1st day of January, 1856, transferred to and charged upon and shall stand charged upon the metropolis at large, as defined by the said firstly-recited Act, including the said parishes and places and parts of parishes and places comprised within the limits thereof; and all sums becoming payable under or required for the payment of any security given for the monies so borrowed to the extent of the said sums of 43,7211. 15s., and 10,000l., or of any interest due or to accrue thereon, shall be paid by the said metropolitan board of works out of any monies which they may have already borrowed and raised or may hereafter borrow and raise on the security of the assessments or rates made or to be made by them for the metropolis main drainage rate under the provisions of the said Act of the twentyfirst and twenty-second Victoria, chapter one hundred and four; and the said board shall take an account between the parishes, places, and parts aforesaid originally charged with the said debts and obligations and the metropolis at large to which the same are hereby transferred, and shall reimburse or give credit to the said

Application

of part of

on security

of metro

polis main

drainage rate

parishes, places, and parts for any sums which may have been overpaid by them or any of them on account of principal or interest in respect of the said sums of 43,7217. 15s. and 10,000l. respectively (if any), since the 1st day of January, 1856, beyond the sums which would have been due from them or any of them if the transfer and apportionment hereby directed had been in force on the 1st day of January, 1856, and the said board shall place any such excess to the credit of such parishes, places, or parts, in reduction of their next or some future ordinary assessment upon such parishes or parts, for defraying their expenses in the execution of the firstly recited Act.

II. And whereas at certain times between the 1st monies raised day of January, 1856, and the passing of this Act, certain works were executed by the said metropolitan board of works for the reparation and reconstruction of to repayment portions of one of the main sewers of the metropolis of sums ex- known as the Victoria Street sewer, and the expenses of and incidental to the execution of the said works were since 1st Jan, charged by the said board on certain parishes in the metropolis, which were heretofore included in the separate sewerage districts, known as the eastern division of the Westminster sewers, the western division of the

pended on Victoria

street sewer

1856 (b).

(b) The length of sewer referred to in this section will ultimately form a part of the main intercepting drainage works now in course of execution, and the enactment treats the expenses incurred in its reparation and reconstruction as expenses of and incidental to the main drainage works authorized by the 21 & 22 Vict. c. 104. This expenditure, unlike that referred to in the first section, is not the subject of any debt or liability for which future provision requires to be made; and the enactment merely directs that the board shall, out of the monies raised on the credit of the metropolis main drainage rate under the last-mentioned Act, replace such monies as they have taken from their general funds for payment of those expenses, and in those cases in which monies have been actually raised for payment of any of such expenses in any of the parishes specified, that those parishes shall be reimbursed and receive credit for such amounts in future assessments.