AUTHORITIES' RESPONSIBILITIES : DISCUSSION 95 



leave the matter in the hands of the relieving officer, who 

 could give her outdoor relief in kind. The guardians did 

 not meet again until September and it was a very long time 

 for 305. to last. He wanted the guardians to have power 

 from the Local Government Board that whenever a necessi- 

 tous case occurred where there was poverty they should 

 have power to relieve it. 



Assistant Surgeon-General JOHN W. KERR (United 

 States of America) said he would like to ask Dr. Fremantle 

 a question and shortly explain his reason for asking it. 

 The idea of democratic government in their country and 

 the growth of local government had made them fearful of 

 the largest possible economy in local government. The 

 obligation of the public health performances, on the other 

 hand, had given rise to a demand for great centralization 

 of public health power in public health matters. Dr. Fre- 

 mantle had spoken in the concluding portion of his paper 

 of the consolidation of the public health service and he 

 favoured a central health organization for this country 

 which would have power over local authorities. He would 

 like to ask Dr. Fremantle what scope such an organization 

 would have, whether it would include England and Wales 

 or England and Wales and Scotland and Ireland and other 

 countries included in the British Isles. 



Alderman BENJAMIN BROADBENT (Huddepsneld) said he 

 wished to add just one word in regard to Dr. Gersten- 

 berger's paper. He (the speaker) hoped the doctor would 

 forgive him for saying it, but the summary which he gave 

 was not sufficient for those who had not read the paper. 

 He hoped that everyone who had heard the summary and 

 had not read the paper would read it afterwards, because 

 the paper was better than the summary and was well worth 

 reading in detail. When he (Mr. Broadbent) read the paper 

 he almost died with envy because it presented to him an 

 absolute ideal of everything that ought to be done in every 

 municipality in our own country, and of everything that 

 ought to be done in particular in every town. In England 

 they had done it partly, but very imperfectly. The point 

 that struck him as being so extraordinarily good was that 

 in Cleveland they had secured the co-ordination of the 

 municipality with the voluntary; they had secured the sym- 

 pathy of wealthy people who could well afford to support 

 voluntary work by large contributions and they could do 

 things and make experiments which woulcl hardly be 

 justified by a municipality without voluntary help. But they 

 had not only secured complete co-operation between the 

 municipality and voluntary effort, but they had done a 



