STATISTICS OF THE DUNDEE WATER BILL—A " REMANET" OF THE

LYNDHURST SESSION.

IN an article on the " Private Bill System," in No. 421 of this journal, we made some remarks on the rejection of the Dundee Water Bill by the Peers; and observed in a note, that " if we had room for the statistics of the case, it would be found that the local injury is of an aggravation amounting to national wrong." Having now the requisite space, we take up this remand of the bygone session, and lay before our readers a plain statement of the principal facts.

Dundee was a famous place, in its way, five or six hundred years ago—stood sieges, furnished zubsidies to royalty, and paid the other penalties of important station in-troubled times. In 1651 it was stormed by MONK, and suffered sadly both in its population and riches : it had hardly recovered from a long train of calamities till several years after the Rebellion in 1745.* In the course of the eighteenth century, manufactures of cotton, thread, and glass, were attempted, but have been entirely re- linquished; and now Dundee relies for industrial occupation mainly on the manufactures of linen, in regard to which it stands the first town in Great Britain.

The present population of Dundee %toy be taken at &O,000. There are no fewer than 62 spinning-mills or manufactories, em- ploying 1695 horse-power of steam. The tonnage of shipping an- nually entering the harbour is 300,000. Twenty years ago, the number of inhabitants was little more than half what it is at present; the number of spinning-mills driven by steam was in 1811 only 4, and the horse-power 61 ; and the whole capital in- vested in machinery did not exceed 22,000/. In 1832, there were 30 mills driven by steam-power equal to that of 600 horses.

From these few facts we may see how rapidly the trade of this

p place has increased. The population has been doubled in twenty years; but since 1811 the manufactures have been augmented in the proportion of twenty-seven to one. Since 1832 the horse- power employed has been nearly trebled. Dundee owes its prosperity to great natural advantages, improved, especially of late years, by the spirit and enterprise of the inhabi- tants. It is the best situated for commerce of any town on the East coast of Scotland; and is the outlet of the products of some of the finest land—the Corse of Gowrie and the Vale of Strathmore, for instance—to be found in any country. Coals are cheap and abundant. In 1815 the inhabitants commenced ex- tensive improvements in the harbour, which gave an astonishing impulse to the trade of the place.

There is every prospect that the trade and population of Dun- dee will continue to increase. The same causes which have trebled its manufacturing capital since 1832, are still at work, with a force certainly not diminished. The skill and enterprise of its inhabitants arc not on the decline; neither is there any proba- bility of a failure of the demand for its staple article; but on the contrary, a greater quantity of it must, we may say, inevitably, be consumed.

There is one grievcius natural check, however, to the prosperity .of Dundee. Such is the scarcity of water there, that the Latin poet might almost have applied to Dundee his celebrated distich on Ravenna- • Vide New Statistical Account of Scotland—Forfarshire, p.7, et seq. " Sit cistesna mill, quam vines, malo Ravennse; Qui poterite multo veudere plans aquans."

It was stated to the Committee of the Lords,t by Mr. JAMES BLACK, an architect and surveyor of Dundee, that the manufac- turers are compelled to use the water they procure from the little streams and wells which arc their only sources of supply, twice over: " They have reservoirs or ponds for receiving the water; it is then drawn from these by engines ; it is then drawn back, and cooled by troughs going round the reservoirs." The second time the water is used, it is rearm, and therefore deficient in condensing power. No mill-spinner or manufacturer will let a drop of water escape that he can manage to retain ; and many engines are frequently stopped by the want of it. The water from the kennels in the street is waylaid and boiled,—an opera- tion most offensive from the horrible stench it occasion.

There is a perfect scramble for water among the inhabitants. The system of " decoying " water from one well to another is ex- tensively practised. By digging your own well deeper, you will probably drain your neighbour's dry. Owners of wells sell the water, when they have it; but in the afternoon it is frequently difficult to get it for love or money : Mr. BLACK says that the accumulation of the nisht is generally drawn off early in the day. Numbsrs of the inhabitants depend upon being supplied by water-carts, paying at the rate of 2.s. 2d. a barrel. In this way some 30001. per annum is expended by the poor people who cannot do better. There is no pure soft water in the town or neighbote - hood : in fact, the analysis indicated a quality injurious to health. We have adverted to the shifts which the manufacturers are put to for this raw material of steam ; and it is needless to remark that it must also tell very much against the shipping, trade of the place, that the necessary supply of fresh water for vessels is so costly and hard to be procured. The danger of loss by fire is augmented by want of water for the engines. The health of the inhabitants suDrs. No people have such an excuse for being dirty as the inhabitants of Dundee—or for "diluting" their drink with the " mountain dew" produced in considerable abundance in those regions. Their Chief Magis- trate, Provost KAY, told the Lords in his sworn evidence, that " in place el' having plenty of water to wash and clean their chil- dren, they even grudge them a drink of water:** It must be kept in mind, that these evils arc daily becoming more serious, from the rapid growth of the place. The total quan- tity of water to be had in or near the town is already in requisition —is exhausted ; and the demand for drinking, for cooking, washing it would be a bad joke to mention, for supplying vessels, and for making steam, is constantly on the increase. Of entree the inhabitants of Dundee have not sat cross-legged and lazy without an effort to relieve themselves from the difficulties we have described. Several attempts have been made to procure a sufficient supply of water. A joint stock company was formed for this purpose by certain individuals, and a bill was introduced into the House of Commons in the session of 1835 to incorporate them. At the same time, the Town-Council, following the successful example of the neighbouring towns of Aberdeen and Perth, applied to Parliament for an act enabling them to furnish water to the inhabitants at prime cost, to be defrayed by an assess- ment on the rental of all houses except the very poorest. These two schemes were carefully examined (in session 1835), by a Com- mittee of the House of Commons ; and the principle of general assessment—that of the Town-Council's bill—was preferred; but, for certain other purposes of a technical description, it was recom- mended that the two bills should be "consolidated." Both parties had proposed to go to a stream called the Dighty, about five or six miles from Dundee, fur their supply. It was found, however, that there were very serious difficulties in the shay ; that the claims of the millers, who had already possession of the stream, for compensation, were exorbitant; and that after securing them the quantity of water they required, there would not be enough for Dundee. It is also a weighty objection to the drawing of water from the Dighty, that it would occasion a diminution of the water- power, so valuable, in such a district, for manufacturing uses. Finding that the Dighty scheme would not answer, the Town- Council in a second bill, which they brought into Parliament in the session 1836, adopted the resolution of going fur water to the river Isla, one of the feeders of the Tay, into which latter river the Isla falls above the town of Perth. The distance from Dun- dee to the point whence the water was to be brought, is about twelve miles. It was proposed to raise the water by engines to an eminence near Newtyle ; whence, by a natural fall, it would flow on to Dundee. The cost of constructing works, which would supply 600,000 gallons a day, was estimated at 80,0001.; and the annual expense only 30001. (we have seen that about that sum is now paid to the water-jobbers in Dundee fur a miserable supply to a portion of the inhabitants.) The proposed works would raise the 600,000 gallons in eight hours, but in twenty-four hours 1,800,000 gallons would be raised, the only additional expense being that of fuel, wages, &c. By extending the line of works a few miles further up the river Isla, fur a higher level, and incur- ring an additional outlay of about one-third—making 120,0001. altogether—the necessity of raising the water by engines, and the annual expense of this process, might be avoided, and a still ampler abundance of water obtained. It was hoped that all parties might yet be induced to concur in measures for securing this pre- ferable advantage ; but in the mean while, and whether the ex- } Minutes of Evidence taken before the Lords' Committee, p. 79, et seq. Minutes or Evidence, p.105. tension should ever be procured or not, the two methods were, so far as the present bill went, identically the same, bating tiie steam- engines. And TIME was of vast importance : the 'Town-Council were bound to be anxious to save the community of Dundee from suffering for one whole year more, tho unhealtkines.; filth, dis- grace, and loss, consequent upon thtt privation of one of the natural elements, of which the witnesses examined before both the Committees of Parliament give such an extraordinary picture. An ample present and prospective supply of the finest water would have been secured by the plan of the Town-Council : this was proved—it has never been questioned. Whilst it brought into the Dundee district a new element of public wealth, from the unappropriated exuberance of nature in another quarter, it ef- fected this without encroachment on private rights, or the slight- est injury to any human being. It accomplished it at a cost which, looking at the greatness of the benefit and the scale of the town in population and wealth, cannot but be esteemed mo- derate. No opposing scheme was brought forward, though at first there was the pretence of one, as a ruse. The general popu- larity of the Town-Council's scheme among the rate-payers, was shown in the results of last year's keenly-contested municipal elections, and proved by several other tests. Still the Town-Coun- cil lost their bill.

How was this, it will be asked?—Of course there was a formal appearance of opposition, else Lord SHAFTESBURY would have set- tled the matter without putting half-a-dozen other nobles to the fatigue of sitting in Committee. In the first place, those who have private wells, conceived that they had a selfish and exclusive inte- rest, contrary to that of the public. Then, the partners in the joint stock company, though without any serious plan of their own, raised an opposition, either out of disappointment, or for the pur- pose of being bought off: they, naturally enough, desired reim- bursement of considerable expenses, if they could compass it in any Parliamentary way. A third class of opponents would be found, of course, among those who are ever ready to object and "button- up" when a trifle of money, however small the sum, is demanded. These, though selfish, may be selfishly fair grounds of dispute ; and we neither blame nor meddle with them. Sinister inte- rests, of a more latent kind, connected with the Dighty water- sources, were suspected, if not traced. But the most active and bitter ingredient in the opposition, was political enmity to the Reformed Town-Council, on the part of the defeated To- ries, once the rulers in Dundee, now a minority small in num- bers, but personally influential. This was the single feature of the case which made it attractive to the Tory Lords, and brought them to the muster. The town which returned the Radical KIN- LOCH, and perseveres in returning the Liberal Sir HENRY PAR- NELL, in a manner the most creditable among all the constituen- cies of the empire, must be punished for its politics. There is no other solution of the conduct of those who busied themselves in bringing about the result : nothing else could be predicated of the activity of Sir GEORGE CLERK in the Commons—of the Duke of BUCCLEUCH and the Earl of ROSSLYN in the Peers.

It is as regards the House of Lords, the beneficent genius of Private Legislation—not as regards any party, or pretence of op- position or delay, locally—that we notice this case. Parties in

Dundee may quarrel; they may never agree; there may be a

new bill every session the next twenty years, and for each session a new plan. Such considerations formed no ground of the Lords'

decision in 1836. The strongest case for passing the bill, a bill, almost any bill, THIS YEAR, was made out. Not one witness against it was examined. After hearing a one-sided speech of

the opposing counsel—abruptly finished with a view to the vote

on seeing the balance of Tory members present—the tutelary and veracious Peers came to the resolution, that " the allegations of the preamble," established either by admission or by the clearest evidence, "have not been proved," and therefore they " have not proceeded further in the consideration of the bill."

The reasons, or no-reasons, that served to this end in 1836, are likely to exist as long as Parliamentary legislation in Local or Private Business.