The appointment by the Minister of Health and the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries of a representative Joint Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Horace Monro “to consider and from time to time report” upon the pollution of rivers and streams and suggest appropriate legislative or administrative measures to reduce what is admittedly a growing evil is welcome, though tardy, news.
Such administrative bodies as the Mersey and Irwell Joint Committee, the West Riding of Yorkshire Rivers Board, the Ribble Joint Committee, the Thames Conservancy Board, and other similar bodies have long been doing excellent work. But the problem is a national one. A strong deputation, representing numerous interests, recently urged upon the Government the immediate need for “a central authority to control inland waters.” It was able to support this demand by quotations from Royal Commissions, Select Committees, Departmental Committees, and scientific authorities for a period of more than half a century.
All these were agreed upon the immediate necessity of national control with local administration in the interests of health, cleanliness, and natural beauty – apart from the special interest of fishermen everywhere. In agreeing to set up a Committee, Lord Balfour, replying in the House of Lords on July 19, 1927, remarked on the urgent need of scientific research upon pollution, and added that though “all were agreed as to the magnitude of the evil” it might happen “that we had to choose between destroying manufactures and maintaining the purity of the rivers, and in many cases it was quite impossible to give a decision in favour of the purity of the rivers and against the continuance of the manufactures by which the people lived.”
We, for our part, do not believe that the Committee will find itself in any such dilemma. There are ways of retaining the beauty of the countryside without killing manufactures. Take a case quoted by the Committee of the British Water Works and Salmon and Trout Associations. The River Leith flows for about nine miles through Edinburgh. “At one time it was an elongated cesspool, defiled by the sewage and waste from the paper mills and tanneries. Now “it is a clean-flowing stream supporting trout and other fish life with which the river is stocked, flowing through miles of city habitations.”
Such cases will be the exception and Lord Balfour’s dilemma will seem a real one as long as the matter is dealt with in a purely local manner. But if the whole question is resolutely faced by scientists and by a central authority, working with local authorities, is it necessarily absurd to look forward to the day when the Irwell also will be the resort of trout-fishers and bathing in the Mersey be our summer joy!