The British Food Journal Volume 59 Issue 8 1957

Abstract

“I hold it for indisputable, that the first duty of a State is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed, and educated, till it attain years of discretion. But in order to the effecting of this, the Government must have an authority over the people of which we now do not as much dream.” So wrote John Ruskin well back in the last century; the Welfare State he then appeared to envisage has in many respects come into being, but there is still timidity in Governments, procrastination, and reluctance to impose their authority on the people, particularly when long term measures of public health are concerned. The dead, or at least palsied, hand of Government seems to clog progress in many directions, and its excuse often is that the liberty of the individual must be protected. This specious line of reasoning is apparently being followed in the question of the fluoridation of water supplies, which was the subject of a recent Symposium organized by the Royal Society of Health. For some years now there has been a fairly full knowledge of the essential facts, and in the Symposium they were ably reviewed and discussed by a number of well‐informed speakers.

Citation

(1957), "The British Food Journal Volume 59 Issue 8 1957", British Food Journal, Vol. 59 No. 8, pp. 71-80. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb011545