THE WITHDRAWN WATER BILL.
IT is a great pity that the progress of Mr. Cross's Water Bill was stopped by the announcement of the coming Dis- solution. That Bill was the one really great measure intro- duced by this Government which the average householder could thoroughly understand ; and if it had gone on, he would have acquired an amount of knowledge as to the ideas, the capacities, and the weaknesses of the Cabinet which would have materially enlightened his future course. The Bill was brought in by Mr. Cross, the Lancashire man, selected by Lord Beaconsfield, to bring into the Cabinet the shrewdness and business ability which Cabinets composed of Dukes and county members, great squires, " acred up to their lips, con- soiled up to their chins," as Mr. Disraeli the novelist de- scribed them, are naturally apt to lack, and he was the most popular member of it. He was thought to do his work well ; • he was praised for the Artisans' Dwellings Act, which did not do artisans much good, but looked as if it would ; and he was forgiven for that in- explicable transaction, the pardon of the " Comtesse de Civry," in the middle of a trial, a transaction which with any other Minister and in any other Parliament would have given rise to weeks of debate. Mr. Cross was believed to be capable, if he got the chance, not, indeed, of original things, but of considerable things, and in spite of an absurd speech or two on foreign affairs, which he does not understand, and on which, therefore, he has neither hesitation nor fear, he escaped the criticism so freely be- stowed upon his more prominent colleagues, and was indeed credited, as it were, by anticipation with a sort of reputation. And in one way it was deserved. Mr. Cross did not shrink from things because they were large. He was like some millionaires, who gain great reputations because they do very ordinary things, requiring no original mind, in millions, instead of thousands, and therefore seem to the awe-struck public not to have managed huge transactions—which is true—but to have exhibited huge ability in managing them, which is entirely false. He decided to " tackle " the London Water question, and he " tackled." it with every advantage. He had carte blanche from his colleagues, who were very anxious that some domestic department should do something great, as great as their foreign policy professed to be. They would then be able to say that although they had not had time, pressed as they were by European dangers and Asiatic intrigues, and the opposition of unscrupulous and sentimental patriots, to attempt finicking little reforms, they had found one big thing for their hands to do, and they had done it. He had the support of the Metropolitan Mem- bers, who were pressed by their constituents, and of the Metropolitan ratepayers, who were discontented with their water supply, and disgusted with the price they had to pay for it. Even the Water Companies were ready to help him, for they were afraid of a competition they saw approaching, afraid of the Metropolitan Board of Works which had fixed a keen and, perhaps, a greedy eye on their monopoly, and not at all anxious to risk a time when they might be selling water for the pleasure of doing it. There were, in fact, no obstacles such as those which worry reforming Home Secretaries, and Mr. Cross addressed himself to his task with every advantage.
He had months for consideration, the assistance of the trained financiers at the service of the British Government, and the power of obtaining any amount of outside assistance he pleased, and he offered the Companies eleven millions sterling more than they were entitled to receive. That was the actual effect, broadly and brutally stated, of his Bill. Had it passed—which was, of course, impossible—the ratepayers of London would have paid more than the cost of two Afghan wars, in order to regain possession of a monopoly which Par- liament was not bound to continue for an hour. The Com- panies possessed a capital of less than nine millions, yielding 10 per cent., and worth, with a fair bonus for expropriation, perhaps twenty, and for this they were offered thirty-one, a sum for which all London could be supplied afresh, as New York is, with a complete and permanent supply. Mr. Cross had actually been so persuaded by his astute interlocutors, that he had come to believe the Water Shareholders were entitled to receive the same income on perfect security which they re- ceived on imperfect security ; that they ought in fact, to have £1,000 a year from bonds guaranteed by the Metropolis for every £1,000 a year of Water dividends. The moment the very principle of the bargain was known, Water shares began to rise, until any other Minister would have been warned ; but Mr. Cross took the rise as proof of his own success, as a Govern- ment might under whom Consols had risen, and actually embodied his proposals in a Bill ; whereupon shares went up higher than ever, till they reached the astounding figures recorded in our columns last week. Fortunes were made in a week, one group of speculators, according to the Economist, clearing £800,000 ; and the whole body of Water Shareholders, which includes such names that a motion was threatened in Parliament for a return of them, in order that no Peer or Member might in forgetfulness vote compensation to himself, —it really might have occurred, for some of these shares have been held, like land, for centuries, till their owners hardly knew they held them,—found their property worth 75 per cent. more than it had been. Then the project collapsed. Electors do not understand foreign politics, and will in that department fling away millions ; but they do understand rates, and they will not in that department give seven farthings for a penny- worth. Very grave men, friendly to Government, shook their heads, Jew speculators outside the Companies spoke annoyed disapproval. Metropolitan Members murmured that elections were close at hand. The financial journals published statistics. The honester Tory papers openly complained. The Rate- payers of London saw they had no chance of relief, if such a scheme were carried through, and patient as they are, murmured sleepily ; and, finally, the great boroughs which want to buy their own water became aghast at such a precedent ; and—then a Dissolution came, and Mr. Cross, who a few evenings before had rebuked Mr. Bright as if Mr. Bright had been an impudent schoolboy and himself a School- master-Bishop, declared that his only idea had been to place a plan before a Select Committee, and the Bill was abandoned. The shares of one Company sank £110 per share, the shares of all declined on an average 50 per cent., hundreds of families were ruined, and thousands lost wealth of which, on the faith of a Government Bill and Mr. Cross's reputation as a man of business, they had felt secure ; and London abandoned the hope of a good and permanent supply of water.
The electors in great towns should not forget this affair, for it is very characteristic, and it concerns them nearly. If they restore this Government to power, there will be many more such. Mr. Cross meant no harm. He was only, like the Cabinet he sits in, very desirous to do something grandiose, very anxious not to harass interests," and very careless of the interests of the multitude who pay for all. It was his bit of "Imperial" policy, a policy which looked grand, and was so described by the Times, in an article which dwelt with gloating triumph, not on the wisdom, but on the magnitude of the transac tion, because it involved so many millions. It was his conquest, not of the gates of India, but of the gates of the Reservoirs. That the work was not worth doing at that price, that. poor and suffering people would pay far too much, that no per- manent benefit would be secured, did not signify in his eyes, probably never struck him even for a moment. There was the splendid project, with the London Press to applaud and nobody to resist,—and such a speech to be made after it was all done ! And it was all so just, too, everybody getting exactly the income he had before, and on so much better security. It was quite beautiful. That is the kind of capacity by which we are governed, and shall, if the election goes for the Ministry, be governed for the next five years. We may not have Lord Bea- consfield for that time, but we shall have Mr. Cross. No harm has been done, except to people who bought water shares, because the Water Companies are not in Central Asia, or Asia Minor, or Persia, but in a place within the range of ratepayers' intelligence ; but then, it is far away that this Government generally exerts itself, its intelligence can hardly increase in the ratio of the distance, and in five years and far-away places, with Water-Bill management, a good many dozens of millions, not to mention more serious things, may easily be muddled away. It is clear, from the history of the Water Bill, that we can have no security they will not be, except in a change of the incompetent persons at the head of affairs, who have shown in that Bill, their inability even to count.
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