Has the wife of the wage-earner domestic help such as her well-to-do sister possesses? Is there a nurse to help her even when the children are sick, much less while they remain fairly healthy? How often has every kettle-full of water to be heated separately on a stove? Under such circumstances is it reasonable to expect the cleanliness which is an indispensable condition of health? Is there a clean supply of milk for every working-man’s family and are there arrangements for sanitary and cool storage of food in his dwelling? And so we might go on multiplying questions, knowing that, if the answers are well-informed and candid, they will confess that the mothers of the wage-earning classes, especially in our large cities—in England, if not also here—have not a fair chance to keep themselves well, or to rear a healthy and robust family. I do not wish to stress this view of the case; but I have said enough to justify the action of the British Government in deciding during the war—and announcing the fact in more than one official circular issued to all Local Authorities by the Local Government Board—that, next to the active pursuance of war, measures for promoting maternal and child welfare ranked next in importance, and that no efforts must be spared to continue and extend such measures. And the history of the last four years shows that this has been done. The central grants for special maternal and child welfare work undertaken by local authorities and voluntary agencies have increased twelve-fold, the number of health visitors has been more than doubled, and the number of maternity and child welfare centres has increased five-fold; and coincident with these facts, infant mortality, which was falling before the war, has continued to decline steadily during the war,—the corrected figures for the years 1912-17 respectively were 104, 117, 113, 111, 98, and 94—although the number of mothers employed away from home has greatly increased during the same period. _The Work of Voluntary Agencies_ I have several times in this address mentioned the valuable work of voluntary health agencies. No official can fail to recognize that pioneer work is commonly started by them; and it has often happened that only when the evidence of its value has become obtrusive has it been taken over by local authorities. This is the true function of voluntary agencies, and will remain so, until local authorities (which after all are manned by voluntary workers) become saturated with the ideals of voluntary workers and of the new women-voters. Local authorities always have one great advantage over voluntary societies, that their action can be supported by legal powers.