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12° Julii, 1927.]

River because of the Seven Holes Sluice. Therefore, the tidal river is confined to the New Bedford River by means of that system of sluices.

A very important area here is the area of the Washlands. In between the blue New Bedford or Hundred Foot River and the Old Bedford River there is a long slip of land. That is known as the Washland and comprises nearly 5,000 acres. If you look at the diagram a moment you will observe that on the inner side of the New Bedford or Hundred Foot River there is no bank. There is a band on the outside, but not on the inside. That hatching, of course, represents embankment. There is embanking on the outside but not on the inside of the New Bedford River. There is a small bank, I am reminded, but there is not so much banking. There is what is called the Four Foot Cradge Bank. It is not banked to the same height. Looking at the Old Bedford River there is no bank on the inner side of that, consequently this area of Washlands has always been treated as a kind of relief reservoir. When the waters came down in excess and could not be got away by the channels provided you could let the water flow into this large flat basin, the Washlands, and there store it temporarily until the subsidence of the waters enabled you to get it away, and you may regard that long slip, the Washlands, as something in the nature of an inland reservoir or container, which acted as a relief and held back some of the surplus waters which could not get away, but held them confined within that area until such time as it was possible to let them away. Of course, that occurred only in times of serious floods. There has been in the past a considerable history of the regulation of the admission of water into this area. It has only been at certain times that it has been necessary to use it for this purpose, but it has been there for the purpose of what one might call a safety valve to prevent the excess waters being dissipated over that area and confining them within that territory when the waters were raging.

Captain Crookshank.] What is the length of that?

Mr. Macmillan.] It must be about 20 miles long, because from Earith to Denver is 21 miles. Somewhere one may say in the region of 20 miles. The land there is very valuable land and its occasional rare submersion is not necessarily

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detrimental to the land, because as the waters subside, of course, naturally the inundation results in excellent growth of pasture. Therefore these lands are quite valuable lands and are largely used for pasturing. But the scheme of enclosuring a strip of land of that sort between two channels is designed to carry off the water, and at the same time to have a system whereby you can hold back the surplus beyond what you can for the moment dispose of.

In addition to this main system exhibited on the diagram, and for which Vermuyden was responsible, there is throughout the area of the Fens a very large series of smaller works of all sorts. The drainage has been carried on throughout this area by a large number of smaller organisations, and also by private individuals in self-protection, and there have been in the past established a large number of Drainage Boards and other authorities of one kind o another whose duty was to get rid the water. Putting it shortly, the whole problem may be put in these words, How to get rid of the water, whether sea water, on the one hand, or land water on the other? That internal drainage system, and I use the word "internal " advisedly because it has become the accepted term which extends throughout the whole of this area, is not the subject of this Bill at all. This Bill is concerned only with what I may call the main drainage system and does not interfere with the multitude of small works of all sorts which extend throughout this area. Of course, the method or another whose duty was to get rid of of from this area is, in so far as it cannot be got naturally into any of the relieving channels, to pump it, and there are a large number of pumping stations throughout this area which pump up the water and get it into these channels and There so enable it to be disposed of. has been a great deal of effort, most meritorious effort, on the part of these bodies distributed throughout the area, and on the part of private owners also, to salve this land, at, no doubt, considerable expense, but the process is also repaying because the land is of very considerable value. But my Lord will appreciate at once that the ultimate efficacy of all this system of internal drainage distributed throughout the whole area is necessarily dependent upon this main system of discharge, because

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the whole of the water has ultimately got to get away into The Wash and therefore the efforts of the internal schemes would be thrown away were it not possible to have the results of their labours carried to completion by some ultimate main drainage system which carries the whole effluent out to sea. Therefore all parties in this region who are concerned with the drainage are concerned with the maintenance of what I may call the main drainage system, the ultimate outlet or relief for the whole

area.

Now these works constructed so long ago have continued down to the present day with a certain amount of modification, and are still in existence. You will notice, my Lord, that the River Ouse receives en route to the sea various contributions shown by the diagram. If you will carry your eye along the original course of the River Ouse, the circuitous line, you will see that at various points it receives the waters of tributaries, the River Cam, the River Lark, the Little Ouse River and the River Wissey. These are the four main tributaries coming into that bank of the Old West River. That water passes out ultimately through the Denver Sluice into the blue or New Bedford River, and so gets just where it joins the original channel of the Ouse. Then you observe also the water from the Old Bedford River at the Welmore Lake Sluice is admitted into the blue, and then this other channel, the channel to the north, the water from that is admitted to the blue at Salter's Lode Sluice, and then there comes in upon the lefthand bank Salter's Lode and the Middle Level Main Drain and St. German's Sluice. All these outlets are controlled by sluices. Then the ultimate effluent of the whole has to be carried down to the sea and to escape there. The problem at the sea end is embarrassed by this, that The Wash, as my Lords know from history as well as from geography, is much encumbered with sand banks. The process of silting which has been going on there, and inIdeed to which the Fenlands are themselves ultimately due, has resulted in this, that you do not get a clean outlet for the Ouse into the deep water of the sea, and there are a considerable number of sandbanks in The Wash, and the tendancy of water coming down and being discharged from a a river is, of

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course, to dissipate itself over these comparatively shallow sandy tracts. That in itself tends to delay the carrying away of the water, and from very early times it has been recognised that not only is it necessary to have works upon the River Ouse itself to expedite the discharge of the water, but not less important is it to see that that accelerated discharge which you are passing into The Wash in turn reaches the sea and gets carried away. Accordingly from very early times works have been carried out at the orifice of the Ouse in The Wash, but the general scheme being to confine the waters discharged from the Ouse within training banks-the Marsh Cut is the best known one-and thus keep the volume of water together retaining its velocity, which it would lose if it were dissipated, and so enabling it with that impulse to carry itself along the channel until it gets to deeper water in The Wash and so gets away. It is part of the scheme which I shall have to outline shortly of remedial works here to carry still further that process of guiding and controlling the ultimate outfall of the water so as to get it thrown into the sea at the best point of disposal and free-this is not unimportant -from the drawback which hitherto the system has laboured under, that the tidal action has been very detrimental because as the tide flows it comes over this large area of sand, and the water that travels up is impregnated to a large extent with this sandy material. Then, as it happens, the speed of the flow, the velocity of the flow, being higher than the velocity of the ebb, the consequence is that all the material that is carried up is not carried down, because there is not the same mechanical flow down as there is up, and as the tidal stream passes into the present training walls, and then up the blue, it carries with it a certain amount of this material in suspension. Then it comes to rest at high water, and when the water comes to rest, or its velocity diminishes, as it does when it travels, that matter in suspension drops on the ground, and as the returning ebb has not a scour of the same velocity the result is that matter is deposited on the bed and is not carried away. That has occurred here for very many years, with the consequence that a great deal of silting has been going on, which means raising of level and impediment to discharge of water. One of the ideas

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of carrying training walls further to sea is that the tide which is going to find its way up the blue channel shall come from clean water, that the tidal water shall not have become impregnated with this sandy material but shall come from more or less clean sea water and not carry with it this material with it which is liable to deposit. The system has two advantages: The first is that it has a continuous impulse and carries the water right out to the end of these training walls into the deep. It has the other advantage that the inlet of sea water is purer and brings with it less material liable to be deposited in the bed of the tidal channel. Therefore the system in its broadest outline of dealing with the main drainage of this district has been to provide a direct short circuit by the New Bedford or Hundred Foot River with those ancillary channels which you see there, and to provide below for the outfall of the water by means of training walls in a defined channel to deep water combined with this relief balancing reservoir which the Washlands provide for the purposes of emergency. Now. my Lord, you have a general conception of the position.

or

Mr. Riley.] May I ask for information. Are we to take it that this scheme will still allow the Washlands to be liable to inundation when the scheme is carried through as you describe?

Mr. Macmillan.] Yes, that is so. It is no part of the present scheme that this relief, so to speak, should be done away with.

Mr. St. John Raikes.] It will be more largely utilised, I think.

Mr. Macmillan.] It is a little difficult to tell; it might be; I do not know.

Mr. Riley.] Would they be subject to less inundation?

Mr. Macmillan.] Frankly, I do not know. Water, as you know, is one of the most difficult of all subjects to prophesy about, but you will have an engineer to whom perhaps that question might be addressed, and I shall be as glad to hear his views as you will be.

Now, my Lord, I have done two things. I have given you a short sketch of the history of this matter and told you what the works are in this region, and I have also given you a short indication of the legislative history of the matter. Now I come to the more immediate matters, a concern with which this Committee will have to deal. There has been for a con

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siderable time past much apprehension in this district as to its future. It was appreciated that the existing works were becoming at points dilapidated; that some steps must be taken, and taken soon, to prevent the works going from bad to worse, and from ceasing to fulfil their function of relieving the water of this area. There had been in the past a certain number of breaks through, consequent upon which there had been serious inundations. It was found that the channels were becoming silted up, not only by the material brought down from the uplands carried down by the river, but also by the sandy material brought up by the tide, because both those elements were contributory to the silting, and the levels were accordingly being altered, and the efficiency of those works was very seriously menaced. Accordingly some time past it came to be recognised by everyone that something must be done for this district, and, if I might take the position before 1920, or indeed before 1914, because I may go back to the period pre-war, there was no single authority in charge of the tidal channel, that is to say, from Brownshill Staunch, which is the limit of tidal action, down to the sea, a length in all of about 40 miles, the key, if I may say so, to the whole drainage of this district. There was no single authority responsible for the upkeep of this vital part of the drainage system, and the absence of such a single authority, with the divided responsibility that necessarily followed, and I suppose the differences of view among the different authorities, resulted in this, that effectual steps were not taken to maintain the undertaking and to preserve its efficiency. Under a temporary measure now lapsed, namely, the Land Drainage Act of 1914, the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries constituted what was known as the Lower Ouse Drainage Board. That Board was constituted with power to execute specified works and to raise funds from the area deemed to be benefited. A scheme was duly propounded and submitted, and a very lengthy inquiry was embarked upon. I may say that it has been a feature of the recent history of this matter that the most lengthy inquiries have always supervened each time. Under the scheme propounded by the Lower Ouse Drainage Board a lengthy inquiry took place and the opposition which that scheme encountered-because all schemes relating to the Ouse are

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opposed-prevented anything whatever being done under that. The works were said to be too costly; perhaps they were; I do not know, but at any rate that solution failed and the works that were then proposed for the strengthening and improving of the main drainage of the tidal river accordingly proved abortive. It is not really necessary to go into those works now because that scheme failed and nothing was done; that was the attempt made by the Lower Ouse Drainage Board.

Then next there came into being the 1918 General Act, and under that Act provision is made for Provisional Orders for the purpose of drainage being made on the petition of appropriate parties. The Board of Agriculture, which has now come in place of the Enclosure Commissioners who were formerly the authority in charge of these matters-the Board of Agriculture in modern times is the authority-were petitioned by County Councils and put in motion after the passing of the 1918 Act, and they made an Order which was confirmed after strenuous opposition in both Houses, and the Order came into force in October, 1920. That Order so confirmed set up the present Ouse Drainage Board. That is what I may call the central body in existence at the present moment, the moment at which we meet here. The Order recites that "memorials were duly presented by persons and bodies affected by the Order and having such interest as is prescribed as being sufficient for the purpose praying that the Order shall not become law without confirmation by Parliament and all such memorials have not been withdrawn," and accordingly it became necessary for the Order to be confirmed by Parliament in consequence of that decision.

The

Order was confirmed and as usual is set out to the Act. It sets out the occasions of the making of the Order: "Whereas petitions have been presented to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries ... by the Councils of the administrative Counties of Norfolk, the Isle of Ely. Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford, Buck ingham and Northampton, for the constitution of a separate drainage district for the purposes of Part II of the Land Drainage Act, 1861, of such area drained by the River Ouse and its tributaries as appears to the Ministry to be expedient "it is not without significance that this action was taken by the County Councils of all these Counties to set the

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Ministry in motion-" and whereas in the opinion of the Ministry it is expedient that the area shown on the map sealed by the Ministry in relation to this Order should be constituted a separ ate drainage district for the purposes of Part II of the Land Drainage Act, 1861" and so on, and then follows the operative part of the Order which constitutes the area and sets up the Board. I said in my very opening words this morning that the immediate occasion of the present Bill was the failure of this measure of 1920 to achieve the desired result. The Board which the 1920 Order set up consisted of 42 members. The majority were elected by the various areas affected, and others appointed by the County Councils, and I think the Ministry was also represented. It was a very large, very unwieldly, and I think I may add a very discordant body, because it proceeded on the principle of giving representation to all the different interests, or alleged interests, in the area; and, as I say, it has throughout the history of this matter been a feature that no two people could agree as to the best works to be carried out in this district, or, perhaps more important, as to who was to pay for them, and at each stage in this case one discovers controversies of the most acute type developing among the various portions of the district, controversies pursued throughout with a tenacity perhaps not inappropriate in a district from which, I understand, Boadicea hailed and where Hereward the Wake withstood the Conqueror, and from which Cromwell and his Ironsides also hailed. But that tenacity of spirit has throughout always exhibited itself, and your colleagues will have the pleasure, I have not the least doubt, of an exhibition of it here at a later stage, but it has been without doubt a real difficulty, because I do not suggest for a moment it is no part of my task to suggest that there are not real difficulties and real problems, and that the views entertained by the various people who know far more about it than I do have been entertained most genuinely and sincerely. It is a problem fraught not only with enginering difficulties or political difficulties, because it has both these, but it has also economic aspects of a different type, and therefore is a splendid debating ground and a splendid fighting ground for the advocates of all the different conflicting views that obtain in this district. But hitherto 1

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am bound to say the recent efforts to compose those difficulties and to present a scheme acceptable to all and efficient for its purpose have not been successful, and the history of the Ouse Drainage Board since 1920, manfully as they have addressed themselves to the task amongst the difficulties with which they were surrounded, cannot be said to have been a success in the sense of achieving the desired result, and that is frankly put in the Preamble of the present Bill which, as I may remind you, says "Whereas the provisions of the Order of 1920 have been found to be defective and the object aforesaid has not been attained "the object was the securing of the better drainage of the area. As I say that Board did not achieve its object. It was a Board whose very composition suggested and stimulated controversy. Then there were difficulties which arose from this source. The area of the existing Ouse Drainage Board comprised in all some 470,000 acres and of those 470,000 acres some 350,000 acres consisted of Fenland, the balance of 120,000 acres being within, as I understand, the area of presumed benefit. The pointer might now indicate the area. You observe that the 1920 area consists of the large solid areas, and then right up the stream riparian margins which really, I think, go almost up to the source of the stream. rather a curious kind of area, but it was an attempt to define the area which would benefit by remedial works directly, or escape from dangers with which they were menaced by means of such works. The complication of the area was such that I shall not trust myself to describe it, but if you look at the Order of 1920 and care to study the Schedules you will find that it is of the most complicated order and has more the appearance of an algebraic treatise in advanced mathematics than a Schedule to an ordinary Act of Parliament, but it was an honest endeavour to apportion the burden to direct benefit. The way it set about it was to divide the whole of the Board's area first of all into nine main areas. Then, secondly, to subdivide certain of those areas into subareas, which brought into existence no less than 21 sub-areas in addition to the nine main areas. These are lettered A to K on the map, and the sub-districts have the numerals affixed to the letter. The scheme then set out a system of

It was

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contribution to the cost of the proposed works which varied in each of those areas and sub-areas, and the result is that as the Schedule shows you get into the most complicated figures. You get down to 1/32nds ultimately, or 1/64ths, indeed, of the rate in certain of the areas. Now I am afraid I must confess that however well-intentioned that scheme may have been, and however admirably composed it was upon paper, it was one really too perfect in its efforts to accommodate itself to every detail for human nature's daily use. It became impossible to work it; it was so elaborate and so complicated that the compilation in the first place of the rate book was an extraordinarily difficult matter. Anyone conversant with local government will appreciate how difficult it would be to make up a rate book for a sporadic sort of area of that sort distributed all over the countryside. The compilation of the rate book itself was exceedingly difficult. Then there developed a very large amount of opposition to the carrying out of the Bill in this shape. I pointed out that part of the area was in the Fenland, part was not in the Fenland, and there was on the part of a large section of what I may call the ratepayers of the scheme a view that they ought not to pay unless they got direct value for their moneydirect, and perhaps I should say, obvious value for their money. Animated by that eminently British spirit they proceeded to decline to pay the rates which were levied upon them. Many protested that they did not see what benefit they were getting from the expenditure, and consequently that process, the last resort of the oppressed taxpayer in this country, known as passive resistance,

was resorted to on such a scale that the unhappy Board was unable to collect its revenue. It had, of course, large and important administrative duties under the Order of 1920, and in order to discharge those duties it was of course necessary for it to execute its rating powers, but when it came to serve its notices and assessments it was met by the most resolute revolt on the part of persons whom you will know in the sequel as the Uplanders, the persons in the upper reaches of the river, who decline to pay it. Consequently it was impossible for the Board to recover the funds necessary. The position in 1925, five years after the Board had come into

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