_Hansard_, March 28, 1912, 5th Series, Vol. 36, p. 598. Footnote 303: _Hansard_, July 22, 1913, Vol. 55, pp. 1910-11. There seems indeed to be a general consensus of opinion in favour of holiday feeding. The experiments made by Dr. Crowley at Bradford in 1907, and by the Medical Officer of Health at Northampton in 1909, which we shall describe later,[304] not to mention the testimony offered by numbers of teachers as to the deterioration of the children physically during the holidays, prove conclusively the need for the continuation of the meals, if the children are not to lose much of the benefit which they have derived during term time. Footnote 304: See post, pp. 184-7. In passing we may note that not only do many Local Authorities--how many we are unable to ascertain, but the number must be considerable--discontinue the meals during the holidays, but they stop them entirely during the summer months.[305] In some towns, where employment is good during the summer, there may be little need for school meals, but in large towns, such as Bootle and Salford, which contain a large population who rely on casual labour, it is obvious that the cessation of the meals during the summer must cause considerable hardship. Footnote 305: This may be through lack of funds, as at East Ham (see ante, p. 56), but is not always due to this cause. (f)--The Provision for Paying Children and Recovery of the Cost. When the Provision of Meals Act was passed it was assumed that a considerable proportion of the cost of the meals would be borne by the parents. It was confidently expected that large numbers of parents would be willing to avail themselves of the provision of a midday meal at school for their children and would gladly pay for it.[306] The circular issued by the Board of Education to the Local Authorities pointed out that the Act aimed at securing that suitable meals should be available "just as much for those whose parents are in a position to pay as for those to whom food must be given free of cost."[307] "There will generally be no difficulty in providing, where it is so desired, a school dinner at a fixed price in the middle of the day, attended by children for whom, by reason of distance from the school or because the mother's absence makes a home meal difficult, the parent prefers to take advantage of an arrangement similar to that now in operation in most secondary day schools."[308] Moreover, little difficulty was anticipated in extracting payment from those parents who could afford to pay but neglected to do so. These expectations have not been fulfilled. In the year 1908-9 the sums received from the parents, either contributed voluntarily by them or recovered after prosecution or threat of prosecution, amounted to only L295, or .44 per cent. of the total receipts.[309] In 1911-12 the amount so received had increased but was still only 1 per cent.[310] Footnote 306: