View report page

106
with the prevailing nuisances and conditions prejudicial to health
and an interest in the sanitary improvement of their respective
districts.
Such a spirit in officers is absolutely necessary to secure the
best results of their appointment.
The interchange of districts would, in my opinion, abolish this
spirit, as the Inspectors would know that their appointment to any
district would only be for a short time, and they would probably
not see the results of their work, they would naturally lose interest
in their district.
(4) The interchange would add to my own difficulties in supervising
the work of the Inspectors. Where they are regularly interchanged
it is obvious I should have more difficulty, after a time, in
tracing the officer who supervised any particular work, or of
obtaining from him details of work, executed at some previous time.
(5) It is clear that positive advantages do arise from the
permanent appointment of officials to districts or portions of
districts, for under such a system the Inspectors acquire a thorough
knowledge of house property and its condition in their districts,
which is invaluable to the Public Health administration of the
district. By interchanging the Inspectors these advantages would
be more or less lost.
If we consider some other appointments of municipal officers,
we see they are appointed for an indefinite time to districts, or
portions of districts, and are usually only changed when there is a
vacancy. I refer to the offices of Rate Collector, Relieving Officer,
District Surveyor, etc, and the same may be said of Factory
Inspectors, and some other Government Officers.
That such a system is general shows clearly enough that satisfactory
results are obtained from it; otherwise we should expect it
would long ago have been exchanged for some other system yielding
better results, either administrative or economic.
Rate Collectors and District Surveyors must become acquainted
in the course of their work with builders and owners of property,