On Thursday evening Mr. Long described his new Water Bill.
The area will embrace the six millions of Greater London. - An elected' Board; chesen froth the Metropolitan borough's and the suburban county areas affected, will have power to buy outthe Companies by agreement or arbitration —if arbitration is necessary the arbitrators will- be Sir E. Fry, Sir H. Owen, and Sir J. Wolfe Barry, an excellent selection— and will be empowered to create 3 per cent. water stock for the purpose. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman condemned the composition of the Board because it i;nored the County Council, and he dubbed it a new Metropolitan Board of Works; and Mr. Barns also declared that the County Council was the proper central body. We cannot on the present owe, sion discuss the merits of the proposal, but we may point out that a very strong argument against entrusting water to the County Council is that they already have more work than they can get through efficiently. Like all publics bodies, they are greedy for more porier, but that 'does not show that more power would be good for them or for those over whom they rule.
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