6. Public Health Committee.
7. Small Holdings Committee.
8. Education Committee.
9. Old-Age Pensions Committee.
Each Committee conducts the affairs entrusted to it, and makes reports to the whole Council at stated intervals.
The Finance Committee examines and recommends for payment all bills and accounts; it also has the management and control of all County Council buildings.
The Cattle Plague Committee deals with the outbreak of contagious diseases on farms—such as swine fever, foot and mouth disease, sheep scab, and the most dreaded anthrax. It has to see that the various Acts of Parliament concerning these are fully carried out. Hence it may have to order the immediate slaughter of all the cattle or sheep on a farm, or perhaps to order that no animals are moved from one farm to any other. Should there be during a hot summer a plague of destructive insects, it issues instructions to farmers how to fight the plague, and moreover it can compel farmers to carry out these instructions.
The work of the General Purposes Committee is very varied. It is concerned with the protection of wild birds during the nesting-season, the testing of the weights and measures used in some seven thousand shops, the inspection of places where ‘Living Pictures’ are shown, the granting of licenses for these, and the choice of places at which men and women shall record their votes at the time of an election.
Under the notice of the Public Health Committee come all proposals for the planning of new town-districts and all those dealing with sanitation; under the Small Holdings Committee come all requests for allotments. The applicant for an old-age pension must prove to the Old-Age Pensions Committee that he or she is seventy years old, and has not a greater income than £31 10s. a year. The control and repair of roads and bridges, and the management of the County Asylum at Walkington, are in the hands of the Highways and Bridges Committee and the Asylums Committee.