MILK SUPPLY: DISCUSSION 229 



upon the right shoulders. The man that sold margarine for 

 butter knew what he was doing, and the man who sold 

 impure milk also knew what he was doing. One of the 

 cruellest things in the world was that men who knew (and 

 the farmer did know) should be selling milk which was not 

 what it should be. They wanted the best of everything for 

 their people, and farming in the future, he believed, had got 

 to be a job for the scientist, for the man who understood 

 the nature of the soil and its different chemical properties, 

 and who would be able to know that what would do in one 

 part of the country would not do in another. As members 

 of local authorities they had the power to make man perfect 

 in his education, whatever class of work he wanted to per- 

 form, and having done that they should demand the best. 



Mr. G. E. BROWN (Staffordshire County Council) said that 

 he just wanted to say one or two words from the standpoint 

 of the ratepayer. He was not there to ask for indulgence 

 for the ratepayer at the expense of the health of the com- 

 munity, but at the same time he was a sufficiently interested 

 person to be considered, and particularly when some of them 

 went before him every three years. (Laughter.) He had 

 read Dr. Hope's paper, in which he referred to the expense 

 of producing milk that was that it must be produced as 

 cheaply as possible so that the consumer should be able to 

 get it at the lowest possible price. If it were to be produced 

 cheaply and under proper conditions, it was only fair that 

 those people who benefited most by having a pure milk 

 supply should bear their share of the cost of getting it pure 

 equally with those who produced it. He would like to put 

 it in this way. The county councils had had thrust upon 

 them the Tuberculosis Order. In their county at this 

 present moment if they did their duty they would slaughter 

 4,000 animals at once, but they had not the money to do it 

 with, and it was not fair to ask the farmers in their county 

 to provide the money for that purpose. That was an Order 

 for the benefit of the people in the towns as well as for those 

 in the country, and if the Government put on them these 

 duties they should provide them with the money to carry out 

 the work. He was not one who advocated goin.s: to the 

 Exchequer for every penny that they wanted. He knew 

 perfectly well that local authorities would be extravagant if 

 the Government provided all the money that they needed. 

 but for those purposes which were for the benefit of the 

 whole community surely the cost should be provided out of 

 the Exchequer? They had been promised a Milk Bill, and 

 he looked forward to the Milk Bill, but that measure was to 

 be administered by the county authorities. County councils 



