“Plans should be neatly and clearly drawn, the cross sectional dimensions and the gradient being written on the _plan_ of sewers; there should be a title and scale on each plan, as also on each sheet, and the date with the name of the engineer or surveyor clearly written so as easily to be read; this as a rule should be in the right-hand corner. Many names are so written that experts cannot read them, and plans are frequently sent out having no title, nor any scale, nor any name.” “Plans of details, such as side entrances, man-holes, flushing chambers, and sewer ventilating arrangements, should be at 4 feet to an inch, larger works may be at 4, 10 to 20 feet to an inch. Clear understandable and measurable details are desirable . . . I have much trouble in looking over defectively prepared plans and crude ill-understood and ill-digested schemes as they are submitted to the Local Government Board, for approval and sanction to a proposed loan. One great fact connected with the Board must not, however, be overlooked. It is not an office of works, it does not undertake to devise neither does it make itself responsible in any degree for the plans or for the estimates which may have been sanctioned. Each engineer and each local authority must both devise and execute the local works, and the district must alone be responsible for the local expenditure. The Board neither dictates as to works, nor superintends works, but reserves the power of refusing sanction to a proposed loan, and of requiring full explanations as to failures in the works, or as to expenses over estimates before sanctioning a supplemental loan. The reason that the Board declines responsibility ought to be clearly manifest; plans and details may be the best possible, but the ultimate result depends on daily local supervision, and this the Board does not give; neither local action nor local responsibility is superseded.” Speaking on this point at the first meeting of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain held at Croydon in 1879, Captain Douglas Galton, C.B., says:[251] “Where a loan is applied for, the plan upon which the money is to be spent is submitted for Government approval. The Government only lends the money after the approval of the proposed scheme of expenditure by one of their inspectors.” “The Local Authorities of the towns to be drained cannot therefore be responsible for the plan selected, for the Local Authorities must alter their plans to suit the views of the inspector. The responsibility of the engineer is diminished, because he may be compelled to modify his plan in a manner in which he may not thoroughly approve, and the inspector has no responsibility in the matter, because, after having approved of the general scheme, he has no control over the details or the execution of the work, nor can he be in any way held responsible, if the result were a failure.”