§ DR. FARQUHARSONasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Grubb v. The Chesterton Board of Guardians, and the decision and comments of the Cambridge County Court Judge thereon; whether the Local Government Board will so modify their consolidated orders as to prevent in future the contingency of a district medical officer summoning his Board of Guardians to pay him his extra fees; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a copy of the Correspondence between Dr. Martin O'Connor, of Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, the Local Government Board, and the North Witchford Board of Guardians, Cambridgeshire, relative to the refusal of the latter body to pay a fee claimed by Dr. Martin O'Connor?
§ MR. DODSONI have seen a newspaper report of the case of "Grubb v. the Chesterton Board of Guardians," in which a Poor Law medical officer obtained a judgment for an extra medical fee for attending a poor woman who had broken her leg. The County Court Judge appears to have stated that the Guardians had no sufficient reason for defending the action. As regards the proposed modification of the General Consolidated Order, it does not seem to me that the Local Government could 1309 properly so alter it as, on the one hand, to preclude a medical officer from taking legal proceedings against his Board of Guardians for extra medical fees which they had declined to pay, or, on the other hand, to require Guardians to pay such fees where they consider they are not legally due. If my hon. Friend thinks fit to move for the Correspondence in the matter concerning Dr. O'Connor, I shall have no objection to produce it.