MILK SUPPLY: DISCUSSION 219- 



improve our milk supplies was by visiting with the severest 

 penalties of the law the actual cases where the trouble lay 

 and where the failure of the dairyman could be brought 

 home. That was his difficulty again in regard to Dr. Coit's 

 suggestion with respect to certification of milk. It might 

 be an excellent thing for people like themselves if they could 

 demand certified milk, but he could not help thinking that 

 people such as themselves could look after themselves to a 

 large extent. Certified milk if they had it would perhaps be 

 used by the better classes, but he believed it would be 

 avoided by the classes in whom he was almost alone inter- 

 ested the very poor. He believed that in one of the 

 papers he read that in the United States certified milk was 

 retailed at from 12 to 14 cents a quart. That was equivalent 

 to 8d. or 9d. a quart, and that came to about 2d. a half-pint 

 glass. 



A DELEGATE said that the doctors were allowed to order 

 that milk in New York for the poor. 



Dr. FREMANTLE said he was not thinking of the price in 

 that connection, although that was an objection, but was 

 thinking of the general use of such milk. He was dealing 

 with the position as a whole. There were exceptional cases 

 and exceptional towns where they could get a pure supply 

 in other ways than by certification, and he could quite see 

 that such milk was of value in exceptional circumstances. 

 They had heard from what Sir Charles Lukis had told them 

 of his own area how it was of great use in such a place as 

 Calcutta, where it had got a certain educational effect. He 

 could not help feeling that the power of supervision of the 

 farms in the counties outside the large towns should con- 

 tinue for a time. The Milk Bill proposed to give that 

 responsibility to the county area. Dr. Hope proposed that 

 there should be concurrent powers given to large towns to 

 go outside their area. He (Dr. Fremantle) felt that that 

 was delaying the responsibility of the local authorities for 

 looking after their own local dairymen that was to say the 

 local authorities in the county would still be inclined to 

 say, " This affects Liverpool, London, Manchester, &c. ; we 

 need not worry about it." It was only by throwing the 

 responsibility undivided upon the local areas that they would 

 get the responsibility recognized by the dairyman. They 

 must have a system of constantly keeping the dairy farmers 

 up to the mark, and in visiting them with severe penalties 

 in the event of their failing to act properly. The system 

 suggested by one of the papers for obtaining better control 

 of the milk supply through veterinary surgeons was one for 

 them to look forward to in the near future. The veterinarv 



