§ SIR F. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he has now received and considered the statement of the Kettering Urban Council and the Report of their medical officer in support of their resolution, under Section 7 of The Infectious Disease (Notification) Act, 1889, to apply that Act to phthisis; whether he is aware that this resolution was moved by a direct representative of labour, has the general assent of the working class in Kettering, and was passed unanimously by the council; whether he is aware that throughout the shoemaking towns the spread of the disease in the factories is specially dreaded, and that, while the sanitary arrangements of Kettering have reduced the deaths in Kettering from zymotic diseases to 25 per thousand, there is an average of forty-nine deaths per annum from phthisis, or a mortality of l.28 per thousand; and whether, having regard to these facts, he will now signify his approval of the resolution and allow compulsory notification of phthisis in this urban district area.
§ MR. JOHN BURNSI have received the statement of the District Council and the Report of the medical officer of health referred to. They have only reached me within the last few days, and they are now under consideration.