220 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



service was in a very early stage at the present moment. 

 It was suggested that there should be a veterinary service 

 which should consist of whole-time experts. He did not 

 think that in county areas they were yet ripe for whole- 

 time veterinary services and he was not at all sure that 

 they ever would be, or that part-time service would not be 

 the best way of dealing with the problem. They must 

 have proper supervision, and to appoint veterinary surgeons 

 here and there in different localities under small authorities 

 would be to court disaster. The veterinary service was an 

 expert service and it should be taken entirely out of the 

 ordinary sanitary or local government work and should be 

 made into one great army of national service to be con- 

 trolled like the National Reserve service of the Army and 

 Navy, and should be posted to work according to the wishes 

 of the local authorities; in that way they would be relieved 

 of a very large amount of expense in administration. Such 

 expert services he felt could never be managed satisfactorily 

 while under the control of the local authorities. The future 

 lay with- national service in that respect, but until that was 

 obtained he felt they must have a system by which the 

 veterinary surgeons and the bacteriological reports, which 

 were suggested to them as necessary, must be under the 

 supervision and control of the medical officer of health, who 

 was responsible for the general superintendence of the 

 health of the county. 



Councillor MARGARET ASHTON (Manchester) said that 

 one of the points which had been briefly touched upon by 

 Dr. Fremantle was, in Her opinion, a most vital question, 

 and she wished to emphasize the fact very strongly that 

 every time they improved the quality of milk they increased 

 its cost and that the quantity of milk in England in our 

 large towns and also in the country was at present entirely 

 inadequate to the fulfilment of the whole needs of the popu- 

 lation. Every time they made it more difficult to get a 

 sufficient quantity of milk they were doing more injury to 

 infant life than they were doing good by improving it. 

 While the discussion had gone on she had been more and 

 more sorry that they had not heard the paper by Mr. Brittle- 

 bank, the veterinary surgeon from Manchester, who dealt 

 with some of the points as to the disadvantages of raising 

 the cost of the production of milk. She had been very 

 greatly disappointed that they had heard no suggestions 

 whatever from any of the speakers as to the municipaliza- 

 tion of the milk supply. When she saw the headings of 

 the papers to be read, " The Administrative Control of the 

 Milk Supply,'* she imagined that they would have had some 



