§ MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)I bog to ask the President of the 643 Local Government Board whether, seeing that the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, based on the case of Bramble v. Lowe, by which he has justified the action of the Board in treating vaccination officers as servants of the Board and not as subject to the directions of the guardians, referred only to prosecutions under Section 31 of the Act of 1867, the opinion of the Law Officers has been taken on the extension of this practice of ousting the power of the guardians to direct the proceedings of their vaccination officer to prosecutions under Section 29 of the Act of 1867; and whether he will give the opinions of the Law Officers as a Parliamentary Paper.
§ MR. CHAPLINThe hon. Member is under a misapprehension in supposing that the Local Government Board have treated the vaccination officers as their servants. As the Board explained in their circular of the 21st October, 1898, the power and the duty of taking proceedings are vested in the vaccination officer under the Vaccination Acts passed prior to the Vaccination Act, 1898, without any Order of the Board or direction from the guardians. The opinions which the Law Officers have given to this effect referred to prosecutions both under Section 29 and Section 31 of the Vaccination Act, 1867; but the hon. Member must be aware that it would be entirely opposed to the established practice to publish these opinions.