VIII. CONCLUDING REMARKS.
Since the foregoing observations were penned, the Chairman of the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal has delivered a very interesting inaugural address, in August last, at the Congress in Exeter of the Institute of Public Health, to which attention ought to be drawn at this point.
According to The Times he is reported to have stated as follows: “He regretted that he could not give some idea of the probable date at which the Commission would issue its final report and recommendations. They would soon, he hoped, be able to publish the results of a prolonged investigation into the treatment of sewage on land; and their experts were now making elaborate parallel examinations of some of the processes of filtration by artificial means. But he feared that they would ultimately be obliged to bring their proceedings to an arbitrary close; for, however much they could learn, he was quite certain they could never come to a point at which they could say there was nothing more to be learned. The subject was inexhaustible.”
These very guarded observations are almost in direct contrast with the very positive assurance of some enthusiastic supporters of artificial treatments, who a year or two ago did not hesitate in proclaiming throughout this country that the panacea for all sewage difficulties had been discovered, and that the investigations of the Royal Commission were a mere matter of form and a foregone conclusion.
To all those who did not share these very sanguine expressions of faith, and who were painfully aware of the great gaps in our knowledge of the processes taking place in sewage purification, these words of Lord Iddesleigh will prove an assurance that the commissioners are not swayed by popular likes and dislikes, however fascinating they may be, but that they are earnestly endeavouring, in an impartial manner, to throw such light upon this abstruse question as will enable them to arrive at correct conclusions.
For a like purpose the foregoing remarks have been written; and if the facts recorded in the previous pages, and the opinions expressed therein, should prove of assistance to anyone in forming correct views, the labour spent on them will be amply repaid.