In the circular letter sent out to local authorities explaining the new Act, the Local Government Board reëmphasizes its previously stated views that child welfare work was second only in importance to direct war work, and was really a “measure of war emergence,” and added: although we have enjoined as local authorities the necessity of the strictest of economy in public expenditure, we have urged increased activity in work which has for its object the preservation of infant life and health. We are glad to note that the great majority of local authorities have realized the value of continuing and extending their efforts for child welfare at the present time. _The Causes of Child Mortality_ For detailed consideration of the causes of infant mortality and of mortality during the next four years of life in England and Wales, the reader may be referred to official reports by the writer. No consistent and continuous decline had taken place in infant mortality prior to 1900, although there had been marked reduction of the mortality in each of the next four years of life. This difference corresponds in the main with the facts that greater success had been achieved in the general measures of sanitation and in the reduction of prevalence of and mortality from such infectious diseases as scarlet fever, diphtheria, and enteric fever, than in respect of the special causes of mortality in infancy. These special causes may be placed under three headings: First, infections,—acute respiratory diseases, measles, whooping cough, syphilis, tuberculosis, and diarrhœa; second, errors of nutrition, due largely to poverty, to mismanagement, and to imperfect provision of facilities for healthy family life; and third, developmental conditions present at the birth of the infants. Under none of these headings had marked success been achieved prior to 1900, though the steady work devoted to the subject of diarrhœa had already begun to show fruit. The statistics of infant mortality may be stated as follows: _England and Wales_ Deaths of Infants under Period 1 Year per 1,000 Births 1896-1900 156 1901-1905 138 1906-1910 117 1911 130 1912 95 1913 108 1914 105 1915 110 1916 91 1917 96 1918 97