Drainage for Melbourne. 57 



efficient sewage would never be incurred. Then, again, the 

 constant repair rendered necessary by the defective condition 

 of the house drains now in existence, would be avoided. The 

 outlay upon these two items I should be fairly entitled to 

 deduct from that which I have stated. It is, indeed, ques- 

 tionable whether, if we were to take a tolerably long period 

 of time — say fifty years — the cost of efficient sewerage would 

 not be actually less than the expense of the miserable shifts 

 and expedients now in use. Nor would it be the least recom- 

 mendation of the system, that in localities commercially 

 valuable, dry cellarage would no longer be an impossibility. 

 At the same time I may remind you that every week's delay 

 will increase the difficulties and cost of a comprehensive plan. 

 The few cases where powerful influence has secured from 

 existing authorities permission to empty the sewage from 

 large buildings directly into the Yarra — a permission, the 

 legality of which, as well as the power of the City Council to 

 interfere, is very questionable — if frequently repeated, will 

 greatly interfere with it, and I trust that no further privilege 

 of that kind will be granted, whoever may be the applicants. 



I now come to the practicability of the scheme. I am 

 aware that many scout a system of sewage as impossible. I 

 remind them that the entire pollution of the area of ground 

 on which our city stands is, as we are now proceeding, a mere 

 question of time ; and that long before it is complete, resi- 

 dence within its boundaries will also be an impossibility. 

 This single circumstance should render us more anxious to 

 inquire into the alleged impracticability of providing 

 against it. 



It will not, I presume, be denied, that as respects levels, 

 the city is well situated. There is high ground, and there 

 are low levels, into which the sewage could be carried ; as in 

 London there are the same, but more unfavorably situated.* 

 We are not subject to those enormous fluctuations of the tide 

 which have interfered so greatly with the outlet of the Lon- 

 don sewage ; and, indeed, I am not prepared to say, that our 

 outfall need be such as to meet with any obstruction from 

 such causes. Let it be supposed that the valley of the Yarra 

 served as the line of the great trunk sewer, the lines running 

 north and south being intercepted by those in the cross 

 streets, which again were carried to the trunk, so as to avoid 



* We have no acclivities more sudden than the slopes of which Holborn 

 Hill, Skinner Street, and Ludgate Hill form parts. 



H 



