WATER -A NATIONAL SYSTEM
AYEAR'S deficiency in the rainfall has now brought home to the townsman a fact which has long been known to the countryman—that the water supply system in Great Britain is everywhere behind the times and in some places mediaeval in character. A week ago the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, with his well-known cheery optimism, informed the House of Commons that the position had improved in most parts of the country, though not in the South and South-East. In the week that has followed, a too sunny sky has widened the area of drought and diminished the grounds of optimism. "Whilst the public vehicles of London have been placarded with notices appealing to citizens to " use less water," the water-carts of Liverpool have been sprinkling the streets with water drawn from the sea. In many parts of the country supplies in reservoirs which serve the towns are again steadily sinking, and thousands of farms and cottages are dependent on water carted from distant sources. The two measures which have been passed through Parliament may produce some slight improvement, the one in inducing local authorities to make permanent provision for supplies, the other in promoting better distribution of supplies that already exist. But the latter is only a make-shift for tiding over an emergency, and the former is not on a scale to have any appreciable effect on the provision of a supply adequate to all the needs of the nation.
Though it is to the Government that we must turn for a remedy, it would be foolish to blame the present Administration for the situation that has arisen. It could not have foreseen this unusual freak of the weather, or have been expected, among its other occupations, to have embarked on national schemes in anticipation of so unlikely a crisis. But the continuance of the drought now demands something more than reassuring speeches. It may become very much more serious, or immediate fears may be banished by continuous heavy rain. We may be in the middle of those three successive dry years which meteorologists consider to be by no means impossible, or we may return to normal. But whichever way it may be, we can never settle down again to the old easy-going attitude. In opening our eyes to the possibility of a grave shortage of water .the drought has also served to show us that we have been too complaisant in the past in making utterly inadequate provision for the needs of a considerable portion of the population. It is not only now but always that the rural districts have been improperly supplied. Cottagers and farmers have been dependent on primitive wells as their ancestors have been from time immemorial. For persons accus- tomed to 'the amenities of towns difficulties in getting enough good. water remain to this day one of the serious disadvantages of a country life, the deficiency remaining as an incongruous element of barbarism in a civilized com- munity. Even in the towns it has often happened in recent years that the arrival of several weeks of continuous fine weather has made it necessary to impose restrictions on the use of water just when more, and not less water, was needed.
But if the present supply is not sufficient for our wants today, it will be still more inadequate in the future. Civilization and the use of water advance side by side. We are asking that at least a quarter of a million new houses a year should be erected for the use of the working-classes, and that those houses should be equipped with baths. The continued popularization of the daily bath will involve an added daily consumption of hundreds of millions of gallons. If trade revives it will lead to the opening of new factories, all of them large users of water. More and ever more water will be needed for cleaning motor-cars, for central heating, for refrigeration apparatus, for cleansing the streets, and for the hygienic renewal of supplies in bathing pools. It may well happen that in the next ten or twenty years our consumption of water in the towns will be three or four times what it is today, and in the country it ought to be ten times as much.
The drought, then. may prove a blessing in disguise if, in forcing the attention of the Government to a situation for which it cannot reasonably be held responsible, it leads it to take measures to avert a future shortage, for which unquestionably it would be held responsible. We now see that provision on an increasing scale is needed for both town and country, and that the country ought not to be left out in a scheme which, to be adequate, should be national. Birmingham today gets its water from the Welsh mountains and Manchester from the Lake district, as ancient Rome, through massive aqueducts, was supplied from pure sources in the Apennines. Today not only ought all the towns of Britain to have a supply as good as these, and not only should there be means of diverting supplies from one to another in case of need, but the intervening rural districts should also get their share. The idea of a national water grid is no more fanciful than that of a national electricity grid. A National Water Board is becoming no less necessary than an Electricity Board. Mr. Alan Chorlton, President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, is among those who confidently advocate a scheme for . connecting up existing water undertakings, constructing emergency storage reservoirs connected by trunk mains with a network of divergent pipes, and tapping supplies, underground or otherwise, at the most suitable points.
Undoubtedly the construction of trunk mains across the country with subsidiary pipes to rural areas would cost a lot of money. But every pound spent in this way would be a pound well spent in increasing the capital equipment of the nation. Now, whilst the future need is apparent, and the nation is expectant, when money is cheap and labour clamouring for employment, is the moment for starting such an enterprise. President Roosevelt, with characteristic initiative, has just asked for another 100 million pounds to meet the losses frdm the drought in America. Ought not we to be prepared to invest as many millions as may be necessary in making national provision for the distribution of water to meet the increasing needs of 'the nation in ordinary times and in times of drought ? The undertaking would involve no financial risk, since the users of water would pay for the cost of the service and the interest on capital. Should not the Government appoint a Royal Commission without delay to explore all the Possibilities and recommend a plan of action?
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