1/4 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



more and more unlikely with smaller towns — and we can often 

 see municipal government granted under British administration 

 to what are really mere villages. In such, the management falls 

 into the hands of those who know nothing about scientific 

 administration, and, very often, into the hands of those who seek 

 election only for personal purposes. Thus the funds are in such 

 places allotted very inexpertly or upon the principle of " graft." 

 As nothing is more generally unpopular than sanitation, this 

 important branch of administration is neglected ; slum owners, 

 fraudulent food vendors, worthless contractors, and jobbing 

 tradesmen and private citizens are allowed full scope ; and the 

 death-rate mounts up into the thirties per mille. 



It is time that the whole of this question of granting municipal 

 government to such bodies should receive the careful considera- 

 tion of Parliament and of the great machinery of Imperial 

 administration. Incompetent municipalities become a danger to 

 the State, and annually sacrifice through ignorance more human 

 life than may be destroyed in a chronic state of war — causing 

 death and sickness to untold thousands. It is extraordinary 

 that this state of things should continue to be allowed. If one 

 city can reduce its death-rate to 14 per mille, other cities can 

 certainly reduce theirs to a figure not much higher ; and when 

 they do not do so, it is generally their own fault. We should not 

 think of giving local judicial powers of life and death to small 

 municipalities — and even the police are generally removed from 

 their influence ; but British administration does not hesitate to 

 allow them much greater powers of life and death in the sanitary 

 line. 



The remedy is to keep and to use full powers of censure and 

 even of suppression against municipalities which show a high 

 death-rate, or which exhibit incompetence in other lines. That 

 this can be done even under present laws is certain ; and in fact 

 sanitary administration has actually been recently taken out of 

 the hands of one municipality, namely that of Freetown, Sierra 

 Leone. For years that body failed to make a sufficient reduction 

 in the malaria which abounds in the town, though several 

 expeditions were sent in order to instruct them regarding the 

 full details of the work. The same thing can be said regarding 

 many other such bodies in British tropical possessions. It is 

 time that more discipline and science were introduced into 

 British administration generally. We are too lax, and give in 



