§ 53. Mr. BLACKasked the Minister of Health whether he can account for the large variations given in the figures supplied by him on 1st July in the deaths in urban areas, namely, fluctuations from 7.2 to 16 5 per 1,000, and in rural areas fluctuations from 7.0 to 19.7 per 1,000; whether the higher rates apply to areas where sanitary conditions are the worst and the public medical and maternity services are least efficient; and whether he proposes any measures to bring down the high incidence of mortality in certain areas to that of the lower?
§ Mr. WHEATLEYI am advised that the considerable variations in the death rate for 1923 as between area and area cannot be assigned to specific causes, and, moreover, that it is hazardous to attempt to draw inferences from the mortality rates for a single year. It is, however, the fact that, in the case of both the urban and the rural area with the highest rates for 1923, the sanitary conditions are not satisfactory and my Department is giving attention to these conditions.