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The annual report of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for 1905, which has just been issued, is a very interesting booklet, which the Board's elder brother, the Local Government Board, might in some respects imitate with advantage in its publications dealing with kindred topics—but in some respects only.

We wish our readers, especially in this war year, the Best of the Season's Good Things!

The Third Annual Report of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, for the year ending 31st December, 1916, has just been issued, and we suppose is now in the hands of most librarians. It is a record of great and important activity which is being pursued on catholic and well considered lines. With what is the outstanding feature of the report, the attempt to revivify a purely English School of Music, while we welcome it gladly, we are not concerned, except in so far as it suggests the establishment of a large central lending library for music, which would lend copies to small choirs, orchestras and similar bodies, for trial and performance; and all librarians will be interested in the decision to publish, after the War, the church music composed in the Tudor and Elizabethan periods, which is being edited by the organist of Westminster Cathedral, Dr. Terry. A library edition will be printed five years hence to serve as a classical record, and the more important works will be printed in an inexpensive form for wider circulation. Anyone who has studied the history of music will know that in the Elizabethan period the English were the most musical people in the world, and this work will do much to establish that fact, and to inspire modern musicians, with all their present day resources, to develop on more distinctly national lines.

From a recently published letter addressed to a well‐known firm of whisky manufacturers by Mr. JOHN LETHIBY, Assistant Secretary to the Local Government Board, it is plain that the Board decline to entertain the suggestion that the Government should take steps to compel manufacturers of whisky to apply correct descriptions to their products. The adoption of this attitude by the Board might have been anticipated, but the grounds upon which the Board appear to have taken it up are not in reality such as will afford an adequate defence of their position, as the negative evidence given before the Select Committee on Food Products Adulteration and yielded by the reports of Public Analysts is beside the mark. The introduction of a governmental control of the nature suggested is not only undesirable but impracticable. It is undesirable because such a control must be compulsory and is bound to be unfair. It would be relegated to a Government Department, and of necessity, therefore, in the result it would be in the hands of an individual—the head of the Department—and subject entirely to the ideas and the unavoidable prejudices of one person. It is impracticable because no Government or Government Department could afford to take up a position involving the recommendation of particular products and the condemnation of others. No Government could take upon itself the onus of deciding questions of quality as distinguished from questions merely involving nature and substance. A system of control, in order to be effective and valuable alike to the public and the honest manufacturer, must be voluntary in its nature in so far as the manufacturer is concerned, and must be carried out by an independent and authoritative body entirely free from governmental trammels, and possessing full liberty to give or withhold its approbation or guarantee.

The king's speech on the occasion of the opening of Parliament contained the announcement that further measures are to be proposed during the present Session for dealing with the adulteration of dairy produce. It may be hoped that among other things this statement foreshadows an intention on the part of the Government to deal in some way with the drugging of milk and milk products—for the purpose of establishing somewhat more effective legal checks upon the abominable practice referred to than any which are at present applicable. As anything in the nature of comprehensive legislation appears to bo out of the question, we must be thankful for what we can get; and while many improvements in the law are required to enable other forms of sophistication and adulteration of dairy produce to be more effectively controlled, the amendment which is of primary importance is one which will take the direction indicated above, since the public health is directly and far more seriously affected by the ingestion of food containing “preservative” chemicals than by the use of merely impoverished or “faked” products—injurious and dangerous as some of these may nevertheless be particularly to infants and invalids.

Discusses US use of drug testing in the workplace, screening employees for smoking, AIDS, genetic traits and reproductive hazards. Attributes this to the costs employers face in insurance, litigation and compensation. Points out that the purpose of drug testing is to circumvent management responsibility for: accidents in the workplace, stress, bad management practices, and disregarding health and safety initiatives. Acknowledges that the tests are harmful and indefensible. Reports that 81 per cent of members of the American Management Association in 1996 conducted drug testing. Claims that screening is the alternative to monitoring – that is screening out individuals who are seen as high risk in some way – yet that misses the point – the focus should be on making hazardous working conditions safe. Indicates that companies may use drug testing as a means of deterring drug users from gravitating towards their organization. Mentions that workplace‐induced stress can lead to substance abuse and that, therefore it is management driven, rather than being a problem the worker brings to the workplace. Quotes a number of company physicians who object to policing drug use. Indicates that drug testing has diverted attention away from health and safety issues and hazardous working conditions.

Outlines the Libertarian framework of rights and obligations in abortion. Argues that abortion is homicide based upon the scientific and philosophic evidence available and disputes further points believed by abortion proponents.

In a circular letter, addressed to local authorities by the Board of Agriculture on December 28, 1901, with reference to the Milk Regulations, the Board suggested that in the absence of any special circumstances indicating the commission of fraud, the local authority might in the first instance call the attention of the vendor to the adverse report of the analyst, and afford him an opportunity of submitting any explanation he might desire to offer on the subject. The Board further expressed the opinion that if the explanation were one which the local authority “felt able” to accept, they might, in the exercise of their discretion, refrain from the institution of proceedings, or withdraw any summons which it might have been necessary to take out in order to avoid the failure of proceedings, at the same time making arrangements for the taking of further samples of the milk supplied, in order that a satisfactory conclusion as to its character might be arrived at. The issue of this letter was obviously a retrograde step, which could only be taken to indicate that the Board were “wobbling” over the milk standards—standards laid down by themselves on the strength of the overwhelming evidence in favour of the institution of those standards as absolute minima, which was laid before the Board's Departmental Milk Committee in 1900. If any proof were wanting that this is a correct view of the case, that proof would be afforded by the issue, on March 27 last, of a further circular letter from the Board, in which the views expressed in the former letter are reiterated, and the study of which can only produce amazement, not unmingled with disgust, among those who have had any experience worthy of the name as regards the working of the Adulteration Acts in this country. Presumably the Regulations were laid down upon due and proper cause shown. By issuing the documents referred to the Board have called the validity of their own Regulations in question, and have suggested that public authorities should base no action upon those Regulations in the absence of other evidence, the nature of which is not stated, indicating “the commission of fraud.” The action of the Board amounts to a smack in the face for the producer of honest and genuine milk such as the purchaser is entitled to get, and can only tend to the introduction of additional loopholes of escape for the dishonest and incompetent.

Looks at the contemporary debate on US immigration, focusing particularly on the increasing articulation of eugenics. Notes that, at times of economic and moral crisis, biological generalizations tend to resurface to provide support for the existing system of privilege and rights, and that the information superhighway provides the perfect vehicle for rapidly spreading beliefs and information. Addresses three specific issues – the genetically determined traits and behaviours of specific racial groups, culture as an expression of biological characteristics, and immigration destroying the racial purity of American society. Outlines briefly US history of immigration. Airs the current concerns on US immigration – pinpointing that concern lies not in immigration per se., which has declined in the last decade, but in the changing national origin of new immigrants, that is immigrants are now mainly Latin American or Asian, which is seen as a threat to Anglo‐Saxon hegemony. Refers to the work of the Pioneer Fund, exploring human variation through the racial basis of intelligence and propensity to violence and/or crime. Claims that scientific language has been adapted to reinforce worries about immigration reducing the supremacy of America’s culture.