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The whole value of the measure, so far as these important questions are
concerned, will depend upon the regulations, and in the absence of these it is
impossible to criticise or comment upon their usefulness.
One important feature of the Bill was the proposed repeal of the warrantyclauses
of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts when milk was the article
concerned, where proceedings were taken for an offence under those Acts.
This is a greatly needed reform.
Provision was also made for the making of regulations under the Public
Health (Regulations as to Food) Act, 1907, by the Local Government
Board, with regard to the importation of milk.
Section 9 of the Bill authorised the establishment and maintenance of depots
for the sale of milk for infants in any district with a population of upwards
of 50,000, or less than 50,000, with the consent of the Local Government
Board.
Although there can be no question of opinion as to the necessity for the
control of milk supplied for young children, it is at least doubtful whether
this would be the best way of effecting it. Apart altogether from the question
of municipal trading in direct competition with dairy companies, the inclusion
of this section is an admission of a prospective failure of the rest of the Bill
when put into practice. In my opinion, in cases where poor women have
lessened vitality as a result of insufficient or unsuitable food and are unable to
nourish their offspring, it would be a distinct advantage if the milk were
given for the mother's consumption at the public expense.
If the Bill is ever placed on the Statute Book, the Corporation will have
no need to adopt it. The mother of every child born in the City is visited
and instructed in the best methods of feeding her infant. The results have
been most encouraging, and a general extension of this system, together with
a more active administration of the Dairies and Milkshops Order in the rural
districts, would be a better and far more economical method of dealing with
the question of infant feeding.
We are energetic, and rightly so, in prosecuting those who supply watered
milk to the community, but there is many an infant of to-day among the
breast-fed who may shortly swell our returns of deaths from marasmus,
atrophy, and debility, because from lack of nourishment to the mother, her
milk is too poor in quality to nourish the child.
There are good reasons for not encouraging the use of pasteurised milk for
infants.