notice, is imposed on persons making or supplying gas within the limits of the special Act who cause or suffer to be brought or to flow into any stream, reservoir, aqueduct, or waterworks of the undertakers, or into any drain communicating therewith, any washing or other substance produced in making or supplying gas, or wilfully do any act connected with the making or supplying gas whereby the water shall be fouled. These penalties are only recoverable in the superior courts, and if sued for during the continuance of the offence, or within 6 months after it has ceased.

Section 64 imposes a penalty whenever the water supplied by the undertakers is fouled by the gas of any person making or supplying gas within the limits of the special Act. Section 65 empowers the undertakers, for the purpose of ascertaining whether their water is being fouled by the gas of any such person, to dig up the ground and examine the pipes, conduits, and works of the persons making or supplying gas. The undertakers must, however, give 24 hours' previous notice in writing to the person so making or supplying gas of the time at which the digging and examination is to take place, and they must also give the like notice to the persons having the control or management of the pavements or place where the digging is to take place, and are to be subject to the same obligation of reinstating the road and pavement, and the same penalties for delay or nonfeasance or misfeasance, as in the case of roads and pavements broken up by them for laying their pipes. Under section 66 the expenses of the digging and examination and the repair of the street or place disturbed are to be paid by the person making or supplying gas, or by the undertakers, according to whether it appears upon the examination that the water has or has not been fouled by the gas of such person; and, in the latter case, the undertakers are to make good to such person any injury occasioned to his works by the examination. Section 67 makes provision for the ascertainment and recovery before justices of the expenses of such examination and repair, and any injury done to the undertakers, together with the costs of ascertaining and recovering the same.

AS TO WATER RATES.-Sections 68 to 74 deal with the payment and recovery of water rates.

Section 68 provides that the water rates, except as in later sections and in the special Act mentioned, shall be paid by and recoverable from the person requiring, receiving, or using the supply of water, and shall be payable according to the annual value of the tenement supplied with water. If any dispute arises as to such value it is to be determined by two justices.

There has been a good deal of litigation as to the proper basis of valuation of property for the purpose of calculation of water rate in different cases. It has, however, arisen mostly on the interpretation of sections contained in special Acts prescribing the maximum rate leviable and indicating upon what it is to be calculated. The wording of the section in the special Act is of course the point of main importance, seeing that section 68 only applies except as in the special Act mentioned.

"

In the well-known case of Dobbs v. Grand Junction Waterworks Company (1883), 9, App. Cas. 49, the Company's special Acts used the same expression "annual value" as is used in section 68. The House of Lords (reversing the decision of the Court of Appeal) held that this expression meant the same thing as "net annual value" as defined in the Parochial Assessments Act, 1836, that is to say rateable value. Following on this case the Water Rate Definition Act, 1885, was passed to provide that the words ' annual value "in section 68 should, within the unions and parishes of the Metropolis, mean the rateable value as settled from time to time by the local authority as duly constituted, an apportionment of such value being made, in case of dispute, by two justices, where the water rate is chargeable on the annual value of a part only of any hereditament entered in the valuation list. Now, under the Acts of the Metropolitan Water Board, rateable value has been made the basis for the charging of the rate for domestic purposes throughout the whole area of jurisdiction of the Board.

In a case where the special Act of a company incorpor

ated the Waterworks Clauses Act, 1847, save so far as the clauses or provisions thereof were expressly varied or excepted, and required the company to supply water to the occupiers of dwelling-houses for domestic purposes at a rate not exceeding a certain percentage per annum upon the annual "rack rent or value" of the premises supplied, and further provided in a subsequent section that the rate should be

"payable according to the annual value at which the premises were from time to time assessed to the poor rate, if the same were so assessed, or, if not, according to the net annual value of the premises,'

it was held that the water rate must be calculated on the rateable value, and not on the gross estimated rental, of the premises supplied with water.

In another case a company, by the terms of its special Act, were to supply water at certain rates on the

"annual rack rent of the house, if the same be let at rack rent, and on the annual value, if and while the same is not let at rack rent,"

and a person who was both owner and occupier contended that his house, not being let at an annual rack rent, ought to be assessed for water rates according to the annual value, and that this ought to be the net annual value, as distinguished from the gross estimated rental. It was held, however, that the words " annual rack rent" and " annual value" in the section ought to be treated as equivalent; that they did not contemplate two scales of charges, one for tenants of houses and the other for owner occupants, and that an owner occupying his own house must pay water rates upon the gross estimated rental as distinguished from the net annual value.

The usual practice now followed in special Acts is to avoid ambiguity by describing the assessment on which the maximum percentages are to be calculated either as "rateable value" or as gross estimated rental."

Reverting again to the Waterworks Clauses Act, 1847, section 69 provides that when several houses or parts of

houses in the separate occupation of several persons are supplied by one common pipe, the several owners or occupiers of such houses or parts of houses shall be liable to the payment of the same rates for the supply of water as they would have been liable to if each of such several houses or parts of houses had been supplied with water from the works of the undertakers by a separate pipe.

Section 70 provides that the water rates shall be paid quarterly in advance at the usual quarter days.

Section 71 provides that the occupier of a dwelling-house or part of a dwelling-house who gives notice of his intention to discontinue the use of the water supplied, or who removes from his dwelling between two quarter days, shall pay the water rate for the quarter ending on the quarter day next after removing or giving such notice.

Section 72 makes the owner liable for payment of the water rates instead of the occupier in the case of all dwellinghouses or parts of dwelling-houses occupied as separate tenements the annual value whereof does not exceed £10. The person receiving the rents of any such house or tenement from the occupier, on his own account, or as agent or receiver for any person interested therein, is, for this purpose, to be deemed the owner. If the house or tenement is occupied by a tenant, under a lease or agreement made before the passing of the special Act, and the owner pays the water rate, section 73 requires the tenant to re-pay to the owner all sums so paid during the continuance of the lease, unless it has been agreed that the owner shall pay the water rates.

If

Section 74 empowers the undertakers, in case water rates are due and unpaid, to cut off the supply and to recover from the person liable by legal proceedings any rate due, together with the expenses of cutting off the supply. the rate due amounts to less than £20 the proceedings may be taken before two justices, but in that case the summons must be applied for within 6 months after the amount becomes payable. If the rate due amounts to £20 or upwards the proceedings may be taken in any court of competent jurisdiction. This power is extended by the Water

works Clauses Act, 1863, section 21 of which permits the taking of proceedings in any court of competent jurisdiction for any rate or sum due to the undertakers under the special Act, without limitation as to the amount involved.

AS TO PROFITS, RESERVES, AND ACCOUNTS.-Sections 75 to 83 deal with the profit to be received by the undertakers when the waterworks are carried on for their benefit.

Under section 75 the profits to be divided in any year are not to exceed the prescribed rate, which, where no other rate is prescribed, is to be 10 per cent. on the paid-up capital in the undertaking; larger dividends may, however, be paid when required to make up the deficiency of any previous dividend which has fallen short of the prescribed rate.

Section 76 provides that, if the clear profits of the undertaking in any year amount to more than enough, after making up the deficiency in the dividends of any previous year, to make a dividend at the prescribed rate, the excess is to be invested in Government or other securities, and the income therefrom is to be likewise invested, until the fund so formed amounts to the prescribed sum, or, if no sum be prescribed, to one-tenth of the nominal capital of the undertakers. This is to be a reserved fund to answer any deficiency which may at any time happen in the amount of divisible profits, or to meet any extraordinary claim or demand which may at any time arise against the undertakers. Whenever the fund becomes reduced it may again be restored to the prescribed maximum.

Sections 77 to 79 deal further with the reserved fund. Sums must not be taken out for any extraordinary claim unless the propriety of such claim is certified by two justices. When the fund amounts to the prescribed maximum the income is to be applied to the general purposes of the undertaking to which profits are applicable. If in any year the divisible profits do not amount to the prescribed rate, such sum may be taken from the reserved fund as, with the actual divisible profits of the year, will make up the dividend to the prescribed rate.

Sections 80 to 82 provide procedure under which con