54 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



personally command every battalion in his army. 

 Here in England and Wales the County Councils 

 at present, in the matter of health, are independent 

 of the central department, and have no responsibility 

 for supervising the sanitary work of the districts. 

 Directly elected by the ratepayers, they should be 

 given the control of the district councils, and should 

 be held responsible to the central department. 



Then, again, expert services, at present appointed 

 and ordered by local authorities, as in the Navy and 

 Army they were originally appointed and ordered by 

 each ship or regiment, should belong to a single 

 national service, although nominated and posted 

 by recommendation of the local authorities. The 

 municipal hospitals here proposed would be part of 

 the same consolidated service, under management 

 of the local authority, subject to the rules of the 

 service and the supervision of the County Council, 

 the brigadier of local government. 



Of this service the central department would be 

 a more complete ministry of health than at present ; 

 it would include the administration of the Factories 

 and Workshops Act, Part I of the Insurance Act, 

 the Medical Act and the Midwives Act, now under 

 other Government departments ; it should be relieved 

 of roads, and of the procedure and finance of Local 

 Government, apart from that concerned with health ; 

 it would give up its mythical Board ; and whether it 

 assumed the correct title of the Ministry of Health 

 or not is a matter of small importance. To this 

 single service would be given the administration of 

 vaccination and of all strictly medical institutions and 

 organizations ; for it is in the interest of the State 

 that medicine should be administered on preventive 

 principles. The curriculum and examinations for the 

 medical profession could then be vastly improved so 

 as to make every doctor in general and Poor Law 

 practice of value to the State as a direct agent not 



