sufficiently developed, and, consequently, the plant was unable to assimilate a sufficient amount of mineral food necessary for a full and abundant subsequent yield.

T. A. DICKSON, Fellow.

The London County Council (General Powers) Bill, 1893, and Low-lying Lands.

The effect of the proposed legislative restrictions upon building on low-lying lands within the Metropolis is more far-reaching than is generally perceived, and in the recent Institution discussions the subject appears to have escaped criticism.

Attention was focussed upon the proposed compulsory forfeiture of freehold by setting back old building lines, &c., as "confiscatory," "predatory," and so on, but this is forfeiture on a retail scale-although it certainly affects the manywhilst the exclusion of low-lying lands from building is forfeiture on a wholesale scale, but affecting comparatively the few.

Most of the lands bordering on the Thames, whether in the old covered districts or in the remaining open low levels, are less than 12 ft. 6 in. above Ordnance datum—that being the limit of Trinity high-water mark. The effect, therefore, of the proposed building prohibitions will be to exclude large tracts comprising hundreds of acres, or, as the Bill itself said, "considerable areas," from development, the few lines of Section 102 in the new Bill extracting from the unfortunate landowners' pockets the difference between building land and "prairie" value--say £800-upon every acre. Many have long forfeited rents owing to the competition of country and foreign supplies with London market gardeners, and it is hard,

even upon an old inheritance, to be now deprived of the usual increment in town lands: for those who have bought in late years, trusting to the usual expansion and to latent building value, it threatens complete disaster.

The proposed restrictions upon low-level lands were first broached in the London County Council's (General Powers) Bill of last year, an "omnibus" Bill of 18 pages, the first 7 whereof dealt with the Council's proposed representation on the Thames Conservancy, whilst the last 9 pages dealt with sky-signs, park bands, and such minor matters. The lowlying lands clause occurred at Section 8, and, as originally drafted, it was most drastic and of grave consequence to nearly every riverside parish in London.

Compared with the bulk of the Bill this sandwiched clause was as a lion harnessed between lambs, and neither endorsement nor preamble gave any key to its real bearing, but were strangely inconsistent with the text of the section.

The endorsement and preamble of the 1893 Bill, both as first drafted and as amended in Committee, contained these words in its 17 lines of printed matter:

"To empower the Council to prohibit or regulate the

" erection of dwelling houses on low lands subject

"to floods."

If these words expressed the purpose of the Council no exception could be taken, as our river walls and defences have long made every low level floodproof and have stood the test of many years. If the powers efficiently exercised by the old Metropolitan Board of Works and the Thames Conservators did not suffice, and the Council wished their hands strengthened, no objection could be made. The words in the section of the Bill of 1893, and repeated in the Bill of 1894, embodied, however, a far wider purpose.

The section (8) in the 1893 Bill, which was repeated in the amended Bill, with one exception hereafter referred

to, and which is, I understand, repeated in the 1894 Bill, was as follows:—

"It shall not be lawful for any person to erect on land "in the county of which the surface is below the "level of Trinity high-water mark, or which is

subject to flooding, or which is so situate as not "to admit of being drained by gravitation into "the existing main sewerage system, any building "intended to be used wholly or in part as a "dwelling house, otherwise than subject to and in "accordance with such regulations as the Council "shall from time to time prescribe with reference "to the erection of buildings on such land.”

The section opens, therefore, with a practical total prohibition of dwellings on low-lying lands, entirely apart from any question of floods, which is coupled up as only a second ground for prohibition; any owner escaping this double net was subject to the third provision threatening all lands lacking a fall into the present main sewers.

The aim of the proposed law, therefore, appears to be not so much to guard against flood, or exception would be made for such depressed inland areas as are remote from rivers and all source of flood.

Under this law not only would house building be for ever barred on lands one inch below 12 ft. 6 in. above Ordnance datum, but, as abnormal tides overflow that limit, levels several feet higher might have been held "subject to floods." The revised section, by the introduction of the word "and" in place of "or" preceding the sentence "which is so situated "as not to admit of being drained by gravitation into an existing sewer," frees from the general anathema upon lowlying lands such areas as are now capable of being drained.

But why should other and equal lands which have

contributed to the cost of the main drainage be excluded by statute from participation in the benefits? Would it not be an evasion of the Council's first duty as successors to the Metropolitan Board of Works to provide efficient drainage? At least, it would be manifest injustice to continue to levy a sewer rate on the boycotted lands.

Is there not risk of obstruction to building on frontages at low levels already developed and capable of drainage? I have met with an instance where a builder's drainage · plan for a vacant plot between other houses, admitting of a good fall into an existing sewer, was refused because the site was below Trinity high-water mark.

There are provisions for exceptions subject (1st) to certain unknown by-laws or regulations; (2nd) to obtaining the Council's license; (3rd) to permission by the Council's engineer and compliance with his conditions, with a final right of appeal to the tribunal of five.

Now, this treble "hurdle" might possibly be cleared, but builders and owners have become nervous and confused since laws and by-laws multiply and change so rapidly. The addition of further gambling risks would paralyse enterprise.

When the trustees of a Peabody fund avow that the Council's building conditions are already so prohibitory that sites for model dwellings are abandoned as beyond the scope of even their ample funds, and when the Council themselves confess that these restrictions have been so exacting and vexatious as to prejudice the sale of their own surplus lands, and are driven to relax them, we are entitled to say that even the present regulations are a check on building operations.

If, however, to these structural checks are now to be added the proposed restrictions upon land sites, the result must not only be a prejudice to property, but a restraint upon

the employment of labour, and may result in a lifting of cottage rents to famine prices.

The low levels in the western districts of London have all been covered-and, surely, usefully covered-with works and workers, and so escape these latter-day restrictions. This ban upon low lands, therefore, mainly touches the eastern districts. After having made their river defences floodproof by special levies for marsh rates for generations, and after having, in addition, paid their full quota to the general sewers rates, this law would be a hard measure indeed.

It should also be remembered that Western London is scavenged at the cost of the Eastern portion, which submits its water and air to pollution by providing sewage outlets for the common good. It was, until lately, further insisted that these unfortunate districts should furnish sites for London outfall works rate free, and only after three years' keen fighting has the right to fair assessment been firmly established.

A crowning hardship upon the landowners is suggested by a prominent member of the London County Council, who informed me that this crusade against the low lands was not mainly due to the interest taken in the welfare of the poor, but was prompted by the congested state of the main sewer system, already so charged that relief sewers have been under discussion, and will, no doubt, soon be forced upon the Council. If this be true, and all pretence be put aside, would it not still be a wrong that the owners of large tracts of low lands should, after 30 years' contributions to the sewer rates, have their appeal for drainage met by a "full inside" as the common vehicle passes their territory, Western London again getting the advantage of first service to the exclusion of the eastern districts?

Giving the Council credit for seeking the interests of the poor and dismissing any idea of ulterior motive, are such