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95
Regulations which deviate from, or are in extension of, or are
repugnant to the General Law," including powers for Compulsory
Notification.
The Select Committee appointed in the Session of 1887,
in their Special Report on the Bills referred to them, state
that: —
''The Committee have readily sanctioned the insertion in the Bills of the
Model Clauses or some of them" (including those relating to Notification),
" originally drafted under the instructions of preceding Committees, and
approved by more than one Parliament. These Clauses have had the merit of
introducing a considerable degree of uniformity into special legislation. They
have now been adopted by a lar ge number of Municipal Corporations and
other Local Authorities, and have stood the test of experience. The Committee
have not been made aware of a single ease in which these clauses have
led to complaint from the inhabitants of any borough or district to which they
have been applied. The Committee once more, therefore, submit to the
House, as was submitted in Reports by former Committees, whether the time
has not arrived for enacting in a general measure those . . . sanitary
provisions."
The clauses, I may add, are set out in full in Appendices
Nos. 2 and 3 to the Special Report, dealing respectively with
"Notification of Disease" and "Provisions as to dealing with
Infectious Disease."
Such, then, in brief, is the history of the question, and
thus matters stood, in the latter half of 1887, when the epidemic
of scarlet fever was pursuing its course. And who can
doubt that it would have been well, having regard to the
difficulty Sanitary Authorities experienced in dealing with that
epidemic, for want of information, had the Local Government
Board procured legislation in the sense of the recommendations
of the Conference of 1881? But regrets are useless, and the
time for renewed action seemed favourable. So, at least, I
thought in making the report placed at the head of these observations
(page 88), and so your Yestry decided. It was right,
moreover, that the body which had brought about the Conference
and the Deputation of 1881 should be to the fore in the new
effort. This effort was initiated by the passing, on October 5th,