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households, it is almost a certainty that it will attack the individuals constituting
them, because they are in such a low state of physical health that their
powers of resistance are at their minimum. It is,therefore, necessary, in any scheme
for attacking the disease, that the powers of the Housing and Town Planning
Act, meagre though they be in some respects, should be enforced. It was no
doubt with this object in view that the National Insurance Act gave powers to
the Insurance Committees to draw attention to insanitary conditions. That these
powers will be used I have no doubt, because the working classes through their
representatives on these Committees from the Sick Benefit and Approved
Societies will be certain to make their demands heard. During the last few
years I have noticed—who can have failed to notice?—that the working man
has more and more insisted that his home shall be better looked after by sanitary
authorities, and that owners of property shall be compelled, as you have
compelled them here, to fulfil their obligations towards it. Therefore the day has
come in this country for even more earnest work to be done than in the past;
and already the great sanitary bodies have almost everywhere recognised that it
is their duty to grapple more sternly with the great problems of life and health,
to realize that the life of man is all, and that, in the words of Dr. Woods,
Hutchinson, " What the community has caused, the community as a mass
alone can cure." Meanwhile knowledge speaks and indicates evils which must
be dealt with; and wisdom prompts responsible authorities to apply the reme
dies which Parliament and the researches of our scientists point out. The
minds of all thinking men have been aroused. They know that health is
wealth and that mere money is not, because generally a healthy man possesses
a sound mind in a sound body, and is in a position to earn money with his
active brain or his strong arm, if he be given the opportunity. But
money can play its part, especially in the hands of public authorities, and of great
philanthropists, because it can purchase the means whereby disease, and all
that disease means, can be warded off from the healthy, and is, therefore,
necessary to the achievement of a great and most desirable end. Beaconsfield
recognised this, and, therefore, made Public Health part of his policy as a
statesman, and passed Acts of Parliament to enable these authorities to spend
money for this purpose and to compel others to do so in keeping their properties
in a good state, for, as he declared, " The public health is the foundation upon
which rests the happiness of the people and the power of a country. The care of
the public health is the first duty of a statesman." His policy was, however,
only a policy of sewage and bricks and mortar. Other statesmen have since
recognised, owing to the teachings of Medical Officers of Health and other
sanitarians, that side by side with it must march education. Yet, although
years ago the great Lord Derby declared that "Sanitary instruction is even more
important than sanitary legislation," it has remained for a recent Government to