264 THE ESSEX NATURALIST
rivers. Good schemes of relief were prepared, but few were put
in hand, the necessary finances again being the obstacle to their
execution.
At last it was widely recognised that land drainage was more
than a local matter, and legislation culminated in the Land Drain-
age Act of 1930, which set up the present Catchment Boards,
modelled on the aforementioned Somerset pattern, with powers to
combat sea flooding and coastal erosion, and with certain arterial
channels defined as Main River, for which the Board were
responsible; and with powers, as before, to precept on the small
local Boards for contributions to the expenditure on the arterial
channels. But there was this difference. All the counties within the
Catchment Area or basin of the rivers concerned were liable to a
contribution of 2d. in the £ towards land drainage. Admittedly,
this worked out unequally in different areas, but here at last were
the means whereby the works, long recognised as necessary, were
to be paid for. It has been during the 1930's, and more so during
the subsequent war years, that the big works of river improvement
have been put in hand. Latterly the counties' contribution has
usually been advanced beyond 2d. in the £, and many works have
been grant-aided by the Government; this particularly in the areas
of low rateable value and in the case of works of sea defence. This
latter aspect looms large in the Eastern Counties. The Essex rivers
themselves require far less attention than the 250-odd miles of clay
walls, with their sluices, that surround the marshes on the seaward
fringe of the county.
The River Boards Act of 1948 provides for the merging of
Catchment Boards into larger areas, and with added powers to
control fisheries and the danger of pollution. If progress can be
made in the next twenty years comparable with that made in the
past twenty years, such legislation will not have been passed in vain.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adkin, B. W. 1933. Land Drainage. London : The Estates Gazette Ltd.
Anglers' Co-operative Association. 1949. Pollution.
Central Advisory Water Committee. 1949. Prevention of Water
Pollution. London : H.M.S.O.
Central Office of Information. 1948. Harvest Home, The Floods of 1947.
London : H.M.S.O.
Eyre, F. and Hadfield, C. 1945. English Rivers and Canals. London: Collins.
Huxley, Julian. 1943. TVA. Adventure in Planning. London : Architec-
tural Press.
Inland Water Survey Committee. 1936. The Water Survey of a River
System. London : H.M.S.O.
Johnson. 1938. Work of the Essex Rivers Catchment Board. London :
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Journal. September 1938.
Pickels. 1941. Drainage and Flood Control Engineering. London :
McGraw Hill.
Rodgers, John. 1947. English Rivers. London : Batsford.