216 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



of which he now had charge they had a milk depot which 

 had been in existence for twelve years, and during that time 

 they had fed something like 10,000 infants, and the result 

 was very satisfactory, because they had taken care to secure 

 a sound article of milk. That had been an extremely difficult 

 thing to do. At times when they applied for contracts they 

 got quite a number of applications to supply milk. The 

 medical officer of health had the duty of going down 

 and inspecting a number of farms. He could assure 

 them that it had become monotonous for him to inspect 

 farm after farm and to find that the conditions prevailing on 

 them were not sufficiently satisfactory to make it possible 

 for the owners to comply with the specification of the con- 

 tract, which required a sound milk supply, and they had had 

 perforce to go to the extent of paying 2d. and 3d. per 

 quart above the ordinary price in order to secure a milk 

 which would comply at least to some extent with the specifi- 

 cation of the contract. Under those circumstances he 

 thought it was unnecessary to say that the administrative 

 and sanitary control of the milk supply of England at the 

 present time was most unsatisfactory. In districts like 

 Liverpool where they had a special Act of Parliament they 

 were better able to control the milk supply than they were 

 in London districts. It was only within recent years 

 within the last three or four years that even any precau- 

 tions had been taken to secure information as to the actual 

 amount of tuberculous milk coming into the County of 

 London, and it had been shown as a result of the powers 

 which the London County Council secured in their General 

 Powers Act in 1907 or 1908 that something like n or 12 

 per cent, of the milk supply which they had examined had 

 been found to be tuberculous. Having regard to those 

 facts he thought it was high time that in this country they 

 should adopt or use some of the enterprise that their 

 American cousins were showing in getting control of this 

 most important industry. The question of the grading of 

 milk which had been referred to by some of the American 

 speakers was one which he was rather disinclined to con- 

 sider as satisfactory in this country. He thought that they 

 might say that we already had the grading of milk carried 

 on, in so far that practically the traders themselves graded 

 milks, and in the poor districts milk was sold at 3d. per 

 quart, whereas in the better class districts 5d. per quart was 

 charged for it. That indicated that the quality of the milk 

 that was sold mostly in poorer districts was a low grade 

 milk. There was considerable reason to believe that the 

 source of supply was very unsatisfactory, and that the milk 



