FOURTH.-Take a North Wilts or a Vale of Gloucester

dairy farm, the reduction in price of cheese is rather greater, about 15 per cent.

FIFTH. In the case of a dairy butter farm the reduced. value of produce may be taken at 15 to 20 per cent., and about the same in the case of a Bristol milk farm.

It is clearly shewn by the foregoing figures that at present prices arable farming is carried on at a ruinous loss. The only remedy, in my opinion (and that is only a partial one), is to extend the process of laying down land to pasture, and to turn the inferior hill lands into sheepwalks.

Dairy farming will hold its own with suitable reductions of rent, and is capable of much improvement in the quality of the produce. The dairy schools instituted by the Bath and West of England Society are of great service in this respect. The quantity of butter produced from a given quantity of milk may be much increased by the use of modern improved separators. Milk standing in old-fashioned shallow pans requires from 4 to 4 gallons to produce one pound of butter, whilst by the use of improved separators the quantity of milk may be reduced to 3 gallons per pound, and even, in the case of Jersey cows, to 2 gallons per pound. The quantity of milk per cow may be largely increased by the liberal use of feeding stuffs.

My object in writing this short Paper is not to deal exhaustively with the present agricultural situation, but merely to open a discussion on this important subject.

WM. STURGE, Past President.

Ribers' Pollution Prevention Bill, 1893.

It is satisfactory to observe that Lord CROSS has introduced into the Upper House a Rivers' Pollution Prevention Bill, intended to comprise the whole statute law relating to river pollution, and to extend the powers of all local authorities.

The Bill repeals the Act of 1876, which has been pronounced a failure on all sides.

In bringing it forward, Lord CROSS pointed to the improvement in the rivers, within so short a time as twelve months, in the districts affected by the Mersey and Irwell Joint Committee Act, 1892, alluded to in my Paper on Recent Experience in Sewage Filtration.*

The provisions of the Bill are modelled on those of the Private Act.

Parts I. and II. make the deposit of solid manufacturing and sewage matter and the discharge of liquid sewage pollution into any stream penal offences, without any proviso.

Under Part II. a sanitary authority will have no excuse on the ground of other persons or individuals having a prescriptive right to discharge sewage into a sewer vested in it. It will be remembered that the Staines Local Board, in 1888 (Reg. v. Staines Local Board),† was excused on this ground, and the discharge into the river Thames, from a sewer vested in it, was allowed to continue. It was held that the local board could not be said to have "suffered " that which it had no power to prevent.

A new clause (7) is inserted to prevent the pollution of streams by the discharge from canals. "If any person in "Transactions," vol. xxv., p. 401.

*

+"Professional Notes," vol. iii., p. 261.

"whom any canal or canalised stream is vested under the provisions of any Act of Parliament, or otherwise, causes or permits any poisonous, noxious, or polluting liquid to "fall or flow, or to be carried from such canal or canalised "stream into any other stream, such person shall (subject "as in this Act mentioned) be deemed to have committed “an offence against this Act." At first sight the clause appears to omit dealing with discharges into a canal, but in the Definitions, clause 28, the word stream is made to include canals, as in the Act of 1876, so that the discharge of foul matter into a canal becomes an offence under Parts I. and II.

Clause 9 in the new Bill is copied, without material alteration, from Clause 7 in the Act of 1876-a clause which, it will be remembered, Mr. WILLIS BUND, in the discussion on my Paper, pointed out as giving rise to much trouble. A question arising from his remarks was referred to me shortly afterwards, about a case in which a county council had given notice to a manufacturer in a town in Lancashire to abate a nuisance caused by the discharge from dye and bleach works into a stream. The manufacturer desired to know whether notice could be given to the local authority under the Clause to take the foul matter into its sewage tanks. Without particulars of the constituents and temperature of the discharge from the manufactory, the dimensious of the sewers and tanks of the local authority, and of the method of disposing of the sewage, the question could not be answered. It is one, in any case, of great difficulty under all the varying circumstances of towns, and the Clause demands very careful consideration. Clause 16 defines a "local authority" to be " sanitary authority and any county council, also any joint "committee, or other representative body constituted under "this Act, or under Section 14 of the Local Government

66

"any

"Act, 1888, or under any other Act for the purpose of

enforcing the laws relating to the pollution of rivers.” Under Clause 17 of the Bill, which is taken from part of Clause 14 of the Local Government Act, the Local Government Board may, on application of the council of any of the counties concerned, constitute a joint committee or other body representing all the administrative counties through or by which a river or any portion of it passes. Mr. WILLIS BUND, however, referred to a difficulty he had experienced in the refusal of a county council who contributed pollution above his own district, to join any committee. It may be pointed out that Clause 18 of the Bill provides that every local authority shall, subject to restrictions, have power to enforce the provisions of the Act in regard to pollution of any stream, whether the offence is committed within or without its district.

The satisfactory results mentioned by Lord CROSS, arising from the application of the Mersey and Irwell Joint Committee Act, 1892, encourage the hope that the new Bill, founded on the provisions of that Act, will result in an Act which will ensure the prevention of much pollution which the Act of 1876 failed to put a stop to. At any rate, if, as Mr. WILLIS BUND observed, a River Conservancy Board for each river basin, or combination of basins, would be the only authority that could deal effectually with pollution, the Bill, if it becomes law, may pave the way as regards pollution for a more comprehensive scheme for dealing with river valleys hereafter.

RICHARD F. GRANTHAM, Associate.

SECTION II.

COMMUNICATIONS REFERRING TO PAPERS IN

66

THE TRANSACTIONS," &c.

On Mr. Freeman's Paper on "The Arbitration Act, 1889."

("Transactions," Vol. XXV., pp. 235-251.)

In the discussion on Mr. FREEMAN'S Paper, I took occasion to refer to the case of Jackson v. Barry Railway Company, and I now ask to be allowed to put before the Institution, at greater length, the point I referred to.

The question was this: Is an architect precluded from acting as arbitrator between the two parties to a contract by reason of his being actually at the same time, though from another standpoint, the agent of one of them? That an architect or engineer is very frequently put into this position by the express wording of a contract, is matter of common experience. Is the fact that his position as sole arbitrator is defined by the contract, of sufficient force to enable him to justify his award if appealed against, or, indeed, to make any but an invalid award?