Excerpt from Compensation Discharge in the Rivers and Streams of the West Riding

The West Riding Rivers Board was constituted in 1894. The writer set forth at the time their special powers, at the same time expressing his view that they did not by any means cover the whole ground. The Act is truly the Charter of the rivers of the West Riding. It created an influential body whose sole interest was the protection of the rivers from their sources to the confines of the Riding. But its limits are narrow, and the powers it confers are restricted. The Board's self-imposed task is one of extraordinary difliculty, and no experienced observer can doubt that to succeed in it, new and wider limits and powers must be secured. Happily, even two short years of public discussion and action have brought public opinion - that indispensable factor in all legislation - more into accoi'd with scientific judgment.

In view of the arduous nature of their task, public curiosity keenly watches the conflict of this Board and of the Mersey and Irwell Committee, with the forces of pollution.' Perhaps the latter is the more interesting problem, for the pollutions of the West Riding, terrible as they are, are not focussed into a huge and practically stagnant canal. But it is not intended here to make any detailed survey of the progress made. In fact, theresults in (351) are not great, whatever may be the results inposse. Like a lion in the path, the formidable question of the trade effluents faces us, and all are convinced that until some practical solution of this problem is found, the Aire and Calder will not be perceptibly improved.

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