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55
RECENT PUBLIC HEALTH LEGISLATION.
The Midwives Act of 1902.
This Act came into force on April 1st of the year under review.
This is a very necessary measure, requiring the suitable qualifications
of midwives for their work and their registration by the local authority.
There is practically unanimous agreement amongst County Councils not
to avail themselves of their power to delegate the duties of the supervising
authority to the local District Councils, and doubtless in cases
where a County Medical Officer of Health has been appointed, a Committee
of the County Council would appear to offer the best chances of
success. The London County Council have come to the decision "that
if the necessary duties of inspection were discharged by the Council
itself, the inspection of all the midwives in the county could be undertaken
by a comparatively small staff employed for the purpose, and that
this would involve very little increase of expenditure." The areas within
which such midwives practise in London are generally extensive, and
even where the area is small it would probably be within two or
more Metropolitan Boroughs, so that if the powers be delegated, a midwife
would be under the necessity of giving notice to all the local supervising
authorities in whose areas she practised, or intended to practice.
Differences in administration would produce confusion as to the
character of the regulations, and as to the degree of strictness that the
authority might be expected to exercise.
The County Council, therefore, came to the conclusion that it
would be advisable to retain in its own hands the powers conferred on
it by the Act; a conclusion to which, I may add, the majority of
County Councils throughout the Kingdom also appear to have arrived.
THE CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE ACT OF 1903.
In 1890 the Customs and Inland Revenue Act granted exemption
from Inhabited House Duty to every house used solely for
providing separate dwellings at rents not exceeding 7s. 6d. per week
for each dwelling, if the Medical Officer of Health certified that the