But the veteran official who has been already quoted attaches a very different importance to this whole matter. In France and Spain, says Mr. Preston Thomas, the Governments were chiefly concerned to deny the existence of any danger. In England the medical staff demanded such an increase in the number of inspectors as would enable them to take proper precautions at the ports. 'Fortunately, Sir Charles Dilke had become President of the Board, and carried with him a political weight which his two worthy, but not particularly influential, predecessors, Sclater-Booth and Dodson, had not enjoyed. He had one or two passages of arms with Childers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when it was attempted to interfere with the estimates which he had put forward, and which he declined to defend in Parliament if they were curtailed. There was an appeal to the Premier, and Sir Charles Dilke had come off victorious. So when he proposed largely to increase the medical staff in order to make a sanitary survey of the entire coast, the Treasury's sanction was given, and the work was carried out with far-reaching results. The authorities of the ports ... were impressed with a sense of their responsibilities; not only did they organize special arrangements for the inspection of ships from infected countries, but they also recognized the necessity of setting their own houses in order in a literal sense, and many of them for the first time displayed activity in providing pure water, efficient sewerage, and a prompt removal of nuisances.... The communications of the Board's expert with the local authorities and their officers ... did something more than lay the foundations of that Public Health System ... which has saved us from any outbreak of cholera for the last quarter of a century, [Footnote: Written in 1909.] and has reduced the mortality from preventable diseases to a rate which such countries as France and Germany may well envy.' (_Work and Play of a Government Inspector_, p. 148.) It should be noted, too, that the first definite action of the Housing Commission concerned the Local Government Board: 'It was decided to ask Parliament to alter its standing orders with regard to persons of the labouring class displaced under Parliamentary Powers, and to insist on local inquiry in such cases, and the approval of the Local Government Board after it has been shown that suitable accommodation had been found for the people displaced. This was done by resolution of both Houses of Parliament.' V.