Preface 
x1 
time, and the wood might catch fire, and then the 
patients would have to be carried out and tents 
hurriedly erected for them ; he would sanction nothing 
but brick or stone. Fortunately, the central control 
here was weak. The council already had the land 
(though it was acquired for another purpose) and 
the expenditure proposed only amounted to about 
twopence in the pound ; some slight risks of illegality 
were run, and the buildings were put up promptly. 
Before they had been finished a week the first case 
of smallpox occurred, and they were soon well- 
occupied. They have neither rusted away nor been 
burnt. If the expert had possessed real control, a 
brick building would have been finished about six 
months after the outbreak was entirely over—unless, 
of course, the absence of any buildings had caused it 
to last much longer than it did. Since then the whole 
number of cases of smallpox has amounted, I think, 
to about a twentieth of those which occurred during 
the outbreak, so that the brick buildings, costing 
several times as much as the iron, would up to now 
have done less than a twentieth of the work done 
by the iron buildings. That is the measure of the 
efficiency which would have been secured in this 
instance by central control, and the instance is by no 
means exceptional. The universal desire of the expert 
to have the best possible article regardless of time 
and cost does not lead to prudent conduct. No one 
of experience and common sense in private life places 
the control of his expenditure in any single depart- 
ment in the hands of the expert in that department. 
He hears what the expert has to say, and then decides 
for himself.