XXI PROCEDURES TO OBTAIN PURE MILK 415 



be ineffectual and would merely have the effect of disorganising 

 the milk business. The farmer would send his milk to some 

 other centre, and the regular distribution would be upset. Its 

 effectiveness would depend upon whether the urban authorities 

 cared to make it effectual. The black list would keep other 

 districts informed of the bad offenders, and even if a volun- 

 tary system only was enforced it is scarcely likely that 

 town B would be satisfied with milk not pure enough for 

 town A. The bad milk producer would have no market, and 

 would have to come back to the urban authority and ask on 

 what conditions his milk could be taken back. He would be 

 given the printed regulations of that authority, setting out 

 what he must do, and when he had made his alterations, 

 structural and educational, he would be allowed to send his 

 milk back. The consumer, as represented by his health 

 authority, would have educated the milk producer and vendor 

 up to his requirements. 



4. It will, of course, be said that the scheme advocated 

 will press very hardly upon the agricultural interests, will 

 render milk production unprofitable, and cause farmers to give 

 up cow-keeping, and, in other words, will harass the milk 

 industry out of existence. There is no reason why such a 

 gloomy picture should be realised. In the first place, all 

 regulations and requirements of urban areas should be required 

 to be sanctioned by the Local Government Board, and need 

 not be more stringent than what is admitted by all authorities 

 to-day to be reasonable requirements. The rural authorities 

 should have power to appeal to the Local Government Board 

 against too stringent urban requirements as to occasional 

 lapses from cleanliness, etc. 



It is surely also not a difficult administrative feat to so 

 arrange that the first effects of the urban control would be the 

 gradual elimination or levelling up of the worst offenders. It 

 is a steady, continuous improvement which is required, not a 

 sudden rejection of half the supplies in the country. 



There is no difficulty in protecting the agricultural industry 

 from unfair stringency of requirement, and with their powerful 

 parliamentary influence this aspect is hardly likely to be 

 neglected. If to require the farmer to keep his cows more 

 nearly like his horses, and to see that his milkmen do not 



