Page:On the Pollution of the Rivers of the Kingdom.djvu/10

iv refuse of mines and manufactures can without any serious interference with the industrial pursuits of the country, within reasonable limits of expenditure, and even in many cases with actual profit to the mine owner or manufacturer, be disposed of in other ways than by sending it into the rivers, and thereby poisoning with it, the public, the fish, the air, and the running waters of the kingdom.

In an Appendix will be found a short statement of the efforts, commencing in 1855, which have been made to free our rivers from their dreadful state of pollution.

Though those efforts have, it will be seen, been strenuous and continuous, the Council regret to state that with the single exception of the main drainage of the metropolis nothing, absolutely nothing, has yet been accomplished in the shape of effective practical legislation towards putting down this gigantic and dangerous nuisance, consequently that nuisance now overspreads the land in all directions, it being a lamentable truth that (with the one exception just noted of the Thames at London) there is scarcely a river, a rivulet, or a brook, contiguous to a population, or to a manufactory, or a mine, that is free from its pernicious influence.

From the remarks addressed in August last by the Home Secretary to the deputation which waited on the Right Honorable gentleman upon this subject from the Fisheries’ Preservation Association, namely, that “he did not intend to continue the investigations, as he believed that the experience gained by the inquiries into a few rivers would govern the whole” the Council were led confidently to hope that Government would be prepared to introduce this Session a measure adequate to meet the evil.

In that expectation they have been grievously disappointed, for on the 24th Feb. last, Mr. Hardy informed