706 TOWN SANITATION. 
sanitary authority, constitute the elements of a good system. 
This, however, most of the towns in South Australia have not 
yet attained to. 
Another obvious defect is, that. food supplies, such as milk, 
meat and bread, are largely allowed to go without inspection. By 
this indifference a subtle source of disease is left uncontrolled. 
When once the importance of recent investigations in the con- 
nection between tubercular disease and the ingestion of diseased 
meat has been clearly realised by the public, we may see more 
vigilance in this direction than at present exists. 
The same indifference applies to trades and trade premises, 
except such as are not within the scope of this report, viz., those 
in the city of Adelaide and suburbs. It must, however, be said 
that the manufacturing industries outside of this centre of 
population are very limited in number, and not generally of an 
obnoxious character. 
4,.—-LoCAL BOARDS. 
The circumstance that local boards change their Zexsonne/ more 
or less every year is a serious obstacle to sanitary progress. The 
members are elected primarily as civic or district councillors, and 
mostly for reasons which have no direct relation to sanitary 
matters. The most attractive quality which a candidate can 
present toa local constituency is a profession of rigid economy, 
and that simply means that neither increased taxation nor new- 
fangled notions, as they are called, will be indulged in. The 
broader principles and larger necessities of good government, 
which certainly include systematic sanitation, have no place in 
such mens programmes of progress. Hence the prospect of any 
rapid expansion in sanitary efficiency is not to be looked for. 
Short of local health boards being constituted on an independent 
basis, only the rougher phases of sanitary work will be carried on. 
Members of these boards should surely possess some acquaintance 
with the elementary principles of sanitation, and certainly their 
freedom of action should be secured to them on the basis of a 
special sanitary rate. When we find local boards, such as Port 
Pirie and Clare, disputing the authority of the Central Board on 
matters which were patent to any tyro in sanitary knowledge, 
the difficulties which bar the way to advancement are very 
evident. The difficulties to be overcome then in the case of these 
boards lie at the root. Their constitution must be changed. It 
is not an ungenerous criticism to say that when material or 
monetary interests conflict with even the crudest necessities of the 
public health, these boards invariably lend the weight of their 
influence to the material. They have yet to prove that they can 
act from motives which spring from an intelligent apprehension 
of those principles which lie at the foundation of a true providence 
over the people. 
