§ MR. J. E. ELLIS (Nottingham, Rushcliffe)asked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether the following is a correct extract from a letter of the Local Government Board to the Halifax Board of Guardians, of December, 1886:—
I am directed by the Local Government Board to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1st instant, applying for their sanction to the proposal of the Guardians of the Halifax Union to allow the children in the workhouse a dinner of rice pudding with treacle on Fridays, in lieu of the bread and cheese dinner now prescribed for them on that day. I am directed to request that the Board may be informed what quantities of rice pudding and treacle the Guardians propose to prescribe for each class of children, and, at the same time, what will be the quantities of each ingredient used in the preparation of a pound of rice pudding;and, if so, whether he will state the reason why it appears necessary to the Local Government Board thus to fetter the discretion of the representatives of the ratepayers with respect to the ingredients of a pound of rice pudding?
§ THE PRESIDENT (Mr. RITCHIE) (Tower Hamlets, St. George's), in reply, said, the effect of the letter was correctly 4 stated in the Question. The particulars seemed to be of rather a minute character; but the question was a larger one—namely, whether the Local Government Board should exercise any control or supervision over the dietary of workhouse inmates? When any change in such dietary was proposed it was necessary that, in the first instance, the Board should be made acquainted with the fact.