_Voluntary Workers._—Much of the success so far achieved in improving the health conditions of infancy and childhood has been secured by coöperation between voluntary and official health visitors. Excellent work has been done by local and other societies, particularly during the last ten years, in educating public opinion and in direct assistance to mothers and their infants. It is essential that such voluntary work should have a nucleus of highly trained and well-paid workers; but given this condition, a large amount of good work can be accomplished by voluntary aid. The main work has been that of the _health visitor_. The details of this work, the conditions of qualification of workers, the number of visits which it is desirable to make, the character of the advice intended to be given at these visits are set out in an official memorandum of the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board and it is unnecessary to repeat this information in these pages. A similar remark applies to the next most important development of work, the institution of _Maternity and Child Welfare Centres_. The conditions of work of these institutions are set out in the same document. _Training and Provision of Midwives_ The provision of additional trained midwives is a pressing problem. The increased cost of living, longer training required, and the rapid development of less laborious and more lucrative occupations, have made it difficult to secure women to train as midwives, or to continue to practise in this capacity after qualification. In many industrial areas the older _bonâ fide_ midwife is preferred, although it is the almost universal experience that the trained midwife more quickly detects conditions endangering the life of the mother or infant, and sends for medical help. In order to encourage further the supply of practising midwives, the government gives grants for increased remuneration to midwives newly appointed by local authorities, sufficient to recoup them in the course of a few years’ service for the cost of their training. At a recent date, of some 30,543 trained midwives on the Roll, only 6,754 were returned as being in actual practice as such. In order to make midwives available for all women needing them, the Board repays to local authorities and voluntary associations half the cost of the provision of a midwife for necessitous women. During the Great War a woman might receive assistance in her confinement from several central sources; for in addition to the above (1) If she was the wife of an insured person, or if she herself is insured, she received under the conditions of the National (Health) Insurance Act 30s. in cash, or if she is insured and the wife of an insured person 60s. in cash. (2) If she was the wife of a soldier or sailor and not entitled to maternity benefit she received from 10s. per week up to £2 from the Local Pensions Committee.