The preceding considerations bear on the perennial problem of efficient government, local and central. There are three functions to be performed in government, legislation, determination of administrative policy and extent of work, and the actual executive work. In England, legislation is in the hands of Parliament and is usually national in scope. Large cities, however, not infrequently obtain special legislative power to meet local needs; and by this means have succeeded in advancing local efficiency above the average standard. Local authorities, furthermore, have the power to make regulations and by-laws for special purposes, subject to the approval of the Central Authority. In settling the details of local administration, the elected representatives of the public are supreme. They meet in Council, and action is taken on a majority vote. The councils of counties and cities, and even of smaller municipal boroughs divide themselves into committees, each consisting of about a dozen members, elected by vote of the whole Council. The chairman or mayor of the Council has no special power, except that he may give a casting vote. The chief defect in local sanitary administration in England is the continued existence of a large number of small and relatively inefficient local authorities. The larger authorities, as a rule, do their work well, and politics enter but little into elections. Official posts are not vacated with changing councils. These councils are approximating to the ideal of a complete local Parliament dealing with all governmental concerns, and to the further ideal that each unit of government should be large enough to minimize the influence of local interested motives, and to undertake each department of municipal work on a considerable scale. The local Parliament has committees concerned with police, finance, public health, education; and when the urgently needed poor-law reforms are made, and when the Education Committee hands over its medical work to the Public Health Committee, the ideal will become a fact. Power is already given to coopt on to some of these committees a few persons who are not members of the Council, from among men or women having special knowledge of the Committee’s work; and the exercise of this power has been found to be useful.