MR. GATHORNE HARDYasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether he has any information as to the approach of Cholera; and, whether he considers that there are now existing sufficient powers in the central and local governments of the country to protect the population from its ravages?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERSir, as I only saw the Question in the Business Paper this morning, I shall not be able to answer it so fully as I otherwise might. The latest information I have received 311 on the subject is to the effect that cholera has for the this two years been in Russia, and since August of this year in St. Petersburg. Since April of this year it has been in Wilna, and other western places; recently it has increased in St. Petersburg, but not nearly so much there as some months ago, and the disease is said to have some diffusion in the western provinces of Russia. We need not assume that this bodes any immediate danger to this country. We have no knowledge of any cases in Germany, but I have requested the Foreign Office that special inquiry on this point may be made at Berlin, and that if cholera is, or arises, in Germany, Returns respecting it may be systematically forwarded to us. While thus there is no reason for immediate alarm, or for any particular action of central authority, there is ample reason that local authorities should exert themselves in the removal of nuisances, and should watch with extreme care over the sources of water supply within their districts. Water companies should be mindful that the greatest disasters produced by cholera in this country have been due to their distribution of sewage - tainted water, and every care should be used by them, in good time, to prevent the recurrence of any such mischief. Their customers, too, should watch them, narrowly. Authorities and water companies, acting as advised, need not be afraid of wasting their trouble; for whether cholera comes or does not come, they will be preventing other diseases. The danger of cholera is one against which the central Government can do scarcely anything—not because the law gives insufficient jurisdiction, but because from the nature of the case, everything depends on local action. The Medical Department has given to local authorities in systematic memoranda, and is constantly in various ways giving anew, the best information which it can afford in aid of the local exercise of sanitary powers.