IV.
As to his departmental work, Sir Charles notes in July, 1884:
'I have said but little of my work at the Local Government Board, because, though heavy, it was of an uninteresting nature.' [Footnote: There are, however, many entries, of which this for 1884 is typical:
'September 8th.—With the Local Government Board Inspectors Fleming and Courtenay to the worst villages in England. I made my way from Bridport to Yeovil, Nettlecombe, Powerstock, Maiden Newton, Taunton and its neighbourhood, Wiveliscombe, Bridgwater, and North Petherton.'
'Between September 21st and 27th I was visiting workhouses and infirmaries every day, and on the 27th I completed my visits to every workhouse, infirmary, and poor-law school in or belonging to Metropolitan Unions.]
'My chief new departure was in connection with the emigration of pauper children, which had been long virtually prohibited, and which I once more authorized.'
Mr. Preston Thomas has fortunately preserved a note of another innovation. The Guardians of a certain union in Cambridgeshire had committed the offence of spending three shillings and threepence of public money on toys for sick pauper children in the workhouse infirmary. The case had occurred before, and the Board's legal advisers had held the expenditure to be unwarrantable, and had surcharged the offending Guardians. Dilke was questioned in the House about the matter, and admitted the previous decisions, but said that the Board had changed its mind. So the children at Wisbech kept their toys; and not only that, but a circular went out from Whitehall suggesting that workhouse girls should be supplied with a reasonable number of skipping-ropes and battledores and shuttlecocks.
The appearance of cholera in French and Spanish ports disquieted the public, and as early as July 25th, 1883,
'I circulated a draft of a Bill to meet the cholera scare, which I carried into law as the Diseases Prevention Act. I did not much believe in cholera, but I took advantage of the scare to carry some useful clauses to deal with smallpox epidemics, the most important clause being one giving compulsory powers for acquiring wharves, by which we could clear the London smallpox hospitals, removing the patients to the Atlas and Castalia floating hospitals on the Thames. I was a strong partisan of the floating hospitals for smallpox. I used to pay frequent visits to them, and in the early summer of 1885 stayed there from Saturday to Monday; and I used also to go to the camp at Darenth to which we removed convalescents from the ships.'
He notes that he was revaccinated before one of these visits:
'September, 1884.—My arm was in a frightful condition from the vaccine disease, though I was still a teetotaller, now of about ten years' standing.'
During the autumn recess:
'In the course of this week I was every day inspecting schools and asylums, the imbecile asylums at Caterham, Leavesden, and many others; and my smallpox wharves were also giving me much trouble, as Rotherhithe and the other places showed strong objections to them, which I was, however, able to remove.'
But the veteran official who has been already quoted attaches a very different importance to this whole matter. In France and Spain, says Mr. Preston Thomas, the Governments were chiefly concerned to deny the existence of any danger. In England the medical staff demanded such an increase in the number of inspectors as would enable them to take proper precautions at the ports.
'Fortunately, Sir Charles Dilke had become President of the Board, and carried with him a political weight which his two worthy, but not particularly influential, predecessors, Sclater-Booth and Dodson, had not enjoyed. He had one or two passages of arms with Childers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when it was attempted to interfere with the estimates which he had put forward, and which he declined to defend in Parliament if they were curtailed. There was an appeal to the Premier, and Sir Charles Dilke had come off victorious. So when he proposed largely to increase the medical staff in order to make a sanitary survey of the entire coast, the Treasury's sanction was given, and the work was carried out with far-reaching results. The authorities of the ports … were impressed with a sense of their responsibilities; not only did they organize special arrangements for the inspection of ships from infected countries, but they also recognized the necessity of setting their own houses in order in a literal sense, and many of them for the first time displayed activity in providing pure water, efficient sewerage, and a prompt removal of nuisances…. The communications of the Board's expert with the local authorities and their officers … did something more than lay the foundations of that Public Health System … which has saved us from any outbreak of cholera for the last quarter of a century, [Footnote: Written in 1909.] and has reduced the mortality from preventable diseases to a rate which such countries as France and Germany may well envy.' (Work and Play of a Government Inspector, p. 148.)
It should be noted, too, that the first definite action of the Housing
Commission concerned the Local Government Board:
'It was decided to ask Parliament to alter its standing orders with regard to persons of the labouring class displaced under Parliamentary Powers, and to insist on local inquiry in such cases, and the approval of the Local Government Board after it has been shown that suitable accommodation had been found for the people displaced. This was done by resolution of both Houses of Parliament.'