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51
item, which, with other small items, amounted to about £50,
should more properly belong to capital account.
This balance sheet, therefore, speaking purely from a
commercial point of view, is the least satisfactory feature of the
report. When weighed against the moral and material
advantages which have been gained from the establishment
of the Milk Depot, there can be no question on
which side the advantages lie. The small charge on
the rates (about 1/6d. in the £) cannot be considered a
heavy price to pay, when the great reduction (which has taken
place in the infantile mortality of the Borough coincidently
with the establishment of the Depot, and for which there is no
doubt that it has been to some considerable extent both directly
and indirectly responsible) is borne in mind.
It is to be regretted that the legislative action which was
promised to enable Sanitary Authorities to provide Milk Depôts,
has not been up to the present successfully carried into effect.
It may be true to a large extent that when the promised Bill,
which is to come before Parliament in 1908, dealing with the
milk supply as a whole, will, when it has passed into law, do
away with the need for Milk Depots. Much, of course, will
depend on the nature of the Bill. Assuming that it is everything
that sanitarians would desire, I am still convinced that,
in large urban communities, Milk Depots will still be found,
amongst the poorer classes, a necessity. It has been said that,
inferentially, Milk Depots discourage breast feeding. There
are unfortunatelv not a sufficient number of them in this
country—certainly not in the Metropolis—to support this statement.
It is a curious fact that in the Metropolitan Boroughs
in which Milk Depots have been for some time in operation, the
infantile mortality has fallen coincidently with their establishment;
and it is only necessary to compare the infant mortality
of many of the other Metropolitan Boroughs where the character
and status of the inhabitants are similar to those in Battersea,
to feel convinced that they do useful work.
It cannot therefore, in my opinion, be asserted that Milk