§ Captain ELLIOTasked the Minister of Health whether he can give any information as to a donation by the Rockefeller Foundation towards the establishment of a school of hygiene in London?
§ Sir A. MONDYes, Sir. I am happy to be able to announce that the Rockefeller Foundation have informed me of their readiness to provide a sum not exceeding $2,000,000 towards the cost of providing and equipping such a school of hygiene, on the understanding that the British Government accept the responsibility for finding the cost of staffing and maintaining it, estimated certainly not to exceed £25,000 per annum at the outset. I do not anticipate any actual charge on the Votes for, say, two years. I may explain that the foundation of such a school was recommended by the Committee on Post-graduate Medical Education in London appointed by my predecessor early last year. I presided over an expert Committee which went further into the question, and finally, in view of the financial difficulty at present of carrying out this recommendation, valuable and timely as it is, I thought it well to put the whole case to the Rockefeller Foundation, as one which they might think it well to support in the interests alike of the British Empire and the United States of America and, indeed, from the widest standpoint of world progress in public health. In the result, they have made the generous offer which I have announced, and I have been authorised as Minister of Health to accept that offer and am now engaged in the preliminary steps towards establishment of the school. The House will no doubt agree with me in heartily welcoming this evidence of common interest and co-operation between ourselves and the United States of America in furthering education and research in preventive medicine.