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19
This would not be so when we come to the instructions to the
urveyor, who is required under the sixth section to report on the
ause of the evil referred to in the report of the Sanitary Officer,
This may mean the cause of the fever, low state of health of the
Inhabitants, or what not : the Surveyor may find the cause to be
eficient fall of the drainage, that there is no adequate provision
r ventilation, or a hundred other things. Next he is to specify
ne remedy: the whole responsibility here rests, from my point of
iew, upon the Surveyor as to the particular action to be taken.
give a medical opinion that the health results from certain houses
re unsatisfactory; you have to accept my report, which is not
bject to appeal or revision in any way, and from the conclusions
f the report you have to work back in an inspection of the premises
o hud out what (if anything) justifies that report : having fouud
hat out. you have to prescribe the remedy, with a view to the
wner disputing your conclusions, but not mine.
The object of the two reports is, in my opinion, wholly distinct
and different. The Health Officer merely points out an evil; the
urveyor reports on the means of removing it. Assuming the
Medical Officer says that certain premises are unfit for habitation
y reason of perpetual outbreaks of Typhus Fever, the Surveyor
hen inspects the buildings and says that structurally they are
erfect, but that the fever is produced by overcrowding: the
tature of the remedy is at once obviously pointed out. The fact
that the Medical Officer of Health should have discovered this for
himself, and have taken action under a different statute, does not
n any way affect the Surveyor's duty, which is quite definitely
kid down.
To recapitulate, it would be most unreasonable to require the
Health Officer to be an expert in building, or to limit the Surveyor
to the consideration of causes that the Health Officer may have
dated in his report. I feel sure the Surveyor's report is intended
o be altogether independent of that of the Health Officer, and
ertaiuly not a report upon it, but dealing with the Health Officer's
onclusions, though not accepting his reasons, which he has full
ower to disregard, or, if he thinks fit, to take as a guide in his
ndependent investigation. I have gone thus fully into the
matter as I think of making a special point of the true reading of
he Act in my forthcoming report. I look upon the intentions of
his Act of Parliament as almost perfect, though whether the
machinery by which these intentions are carried out is equally
perfect I leave to the lawyers to decide.
I am, dear Mr. Barratt,
Very faithfully yours,
GEORGE PADDOCK BATE.
F. W. Barratt, Esq.,
Surveyor to the Parish of St. Matthew, Bethnal Green,