1020 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 
irksomeness its mandatory provisions may be received by some, 
no class and no individual of any class goes under in consequence. 
I claim on behalf of public health laws, that although they come 
within range of the spirit of a time which hankers after com- 
pulsory legislation for economic purposes, they are the one 
phase of that legislation which can call to its defence sound 
reason, and a guarantee of fair play to all. Compulsion at any 
time can only be deprived of its apparent tyranny by its 
inherent reasonableness, and applied to the legislation I should 
like to see established, it simply means the parting with a partial 
to) 
and oftentimes injurious freedom for a fuller and a higher form 
of liberty. 
Surely, therefore, I may approach my brother representatives 
of the people, and claim an attentive hearing on behalf of more 
complete public health enactments than now exist. It is no 
doubtful claim that such enactments are but part of the modern 
movement which is lifting the masses and ameliorating the 
struggle for existence. Philosophers have called it the altruistic 
movement, but the spirit of it is the lessening of human misery, 
and the enlargement of the possibilities of a better life to all. 
There cannot be any question of the supreme importance to 
everyone of the possession of health ; but much more important 
is its continuity to that large class of men and women, whose 
chances of securing the necessaries of life are so limited as to 
leave, when health is gone, but a small reserve between 
independence and poverty. Under conditions of poverty the 
struggle is neither fair nor equal. Writers on social evolution, 
and “political leaders of all creeds, never fail, now-a-days, to 
remind us that the whole trend of our social advancement fore- 
shadows a larger and more righteous equality of opportunity for 
all. If this be so, then the question of public health legislation 
is lifted into a position of supreme importance. Such an equality 
is but a dream to the masses without securing to them the possi- 
bilities of health. 
But we may also look at Public Health legislation from the 
economic as well as the altruistic standpoint. Some of its problems 
can be set out in figures as clearly as the balance-sheet of a business 
concern. National Wealth and National Husbandry, if not 
absolutely convertible terms are nearly so. Adam Smith tells 
us industry i is the true source of wealth ; but steady toil lies at 
the basis of industry and health at the basis of toil. A healthy 
nation also industrious is on the high road to wealth. It is this 
condition that alone makes for a high standard of comfort, and as 
the social writer phrases it, makes possible the maintenance of a 
life worth living. 
We have not the data at our command in the statistical records 
of Australia to set out fully the gains which an intelligent system 
