256
RIVERS POLLUTION.
Mr. David Howard said he felt a little difficulty, for he did not know whether
to address them as a lover of nature or as a manufacturer. The manufacturer was
often looked upon as the strong ass that would bear any burden, or else he was
held up to detestation because he was a capitalist. There were a number of
industries carried on with a narrow margin of profits that too much interference
could not be borne.
Dr. Sanders, who was asked to give his experience) said he only attended the
conference as a learner, but he thought Mr. David Howard's views as regarded
manufacturers were a little too pessimistic. Although he had been searching for
twenty years, he had got no results which could be put into statistics as to the
effect of living near polluted backwaters. He thought, however, that Dr. Thresh
would agree with him that people who lived near such backwaters as those of the
river Lea must suffer.
Dr. Parsons, of the Local Government Board, said the only cases of injury to
health he had been able to trace were where those affected had been subjected
to the splashing and the spray of polluted rivers. Except in these cases there
seemed to be very little evidence of the effect of rivers polluted with effluent.
Speaking on the effect of such water upon shell-fish, he thought consumers
might not trouble about oysters so long as they knew that they had been kept in
pure water just previous to being sold.
Mr. J. M. Wood, C.E., spoke also as an expert in the study of underground
waters in Essex.
Dr. Sommerville (Lecturer on Public Health at King's College) illustrated
his argument by pointing out that there were two great cycles in water and
animal matter. From the sea vapour arose which formed the clouds, which
dispersed on the earth in the form of rain, sank into the soil, and emerged again
as rivers flowing into the sea. And so with animal matter—the dead produced
life, or helped to sustain another form. The problem was to see that these two
great cycles did not touch each other.
Mr. Brooke Pike, F.C.S., said that a discussion on the pollution of rivers
necessarily resolved itself info a consideration of the purification of sewage, and
the recent statement of the President of the Local Government Board that he
intended to introduce a bill dealing with the subject was no doubt the
outcome of the protracted labours of the Royal Commission on Sewage
Disposal, then and for the past nine years sitting. We might, therefore, hope
that the final report of the Commission would shortly be issued ; but until that
was forthcoming no legislation on the subject could surely take place.
Expressions of opinion from various county scientific bodies, such as the Essex
Field Club, must go far in supporting and strengthening any proposals which the
Government might be contemplating. For we may take it for granted that the
opinion of the country as a whole is unanimous that bacterial treatment in one
form or another is the only logical and feasible method of purifying sewage to
such au extent that its final oxidation in the stream itself shall take place without
danger and without offence. Mr. Pike strongly advocated the establishment of
Rivers Boards throughout the country similar in character to those already
existing in the North of England. Such a plan would be eminently practical
and desirable, and has indeed been repeatedly put forward in reports of
previous Royal Commissions during the past 50 years.