ABSTRACT
The Public Health Act set up a central authority and local authorities, but it put their relations on a bad footing, and it gave a wrong turn to the whole problem. Lord Seymour, who spoke with authority because he had been at one time an ex-officio member of the Board, said that he was in favour of legislation for the public health, but that the existing scheme, was intolerable; its effect was to make sanitary reform hated. The central authority was a General Board of Health, established in the first instance for five years, composed of the Commissioner of Woods and Forests, and two other members, one of them with a salary. The only kind of Housing Bill that could have been practicable was a large Bill; the Board of Health made the mistake of thinking that a small remedy can be applied more easily than a large to a large problem.
