4 i2 MILK AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH CHAP. 



district of a local authority for purposes of sale that local 

 authority should be given power to collect samples of such 

 milk from anywhere, and authority to inspect all dairies, cow- 

 sheds, and cows, wherever situated, supplying such milk, if 

 there is reasonable grounds for suspecting that adequate pre- 

 cautions are not observed to preserve it as a pure and whole- 

 some article. If the conditions are unsatisfactory, and are not 

 remedied on complaint, the local authority should have 

 power to prohibit the sale of that milk within their district 

 until written permission to resume is given. The milk pro- 

 ducer or his agent must be served with notice to be present 

 to enable him to state his side of the case, and the local 

 authority must be prepared to furnish definite conditions 

 which, on being complied with, would entitle the milk pro- 

 ducer to again send his milk into the prohibited urban area. 

 The power given to the local authority would simply be to 

 prohibit the sale of the milk within their area. They would 

 have neither power to prosecute nor to order specified works 

 to be carried out. 



To carry out such a regulation it is obviously essential 

 that the law should require all milk vendors to send to the 

 local authority in the area in which they distribute milk, a 

 list of the sources of their milk, and to keep it up to date 

 by notifying alterations. This procedure to obtain clean milk 

 was enunciated by the writer 1 in 1906, and added experience 

 has only confirmed his belief in it. 



Some of the objections which will, no doubt, be made may 

 be considered. 



1. It will be said, as the Central Chamber of Agriculture 

 declared in connection with Clause 2 of the Milk and Dairies 

 Bill of Mr. Burns seeking to do the same thing, but for milk 

 in relation to infectious diseases only, that it is a violation of 

 the whole principle of local government by authorising the 

 officials of one local authority to interfere in the area of 

 another. 



It is more than twenty-five years since the Dairies, Cow- 

 sheds, and Milkshops Order of 1885 was issued; many rural 

 areas have made no regulations under it, and where they 

 have they are essentially a dead letter. The rural areas will 



1 Journ. Royal San. Institute, 1906, xxvii. p. 685. 



