plished in each municipality by insular and municipal inspectors, respectively, fortnightly reports-Continued. STATEMENT NO. 14.-Bureau of Weights and Measures.-Table showing work accom according to daily and Grand total... 9,646 31 366 596 3,404 8 164 164 2,838 49 580 76 102,102 379 14,503 6,472, plished in each municipality by insular and municipal inspectors, respectively, fortnightly reports-Continued. APPENDIX III. REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH. OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH, The honorable the GOVERNOR OF PORTO RICO, San Juan, P. R. SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of this service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1917: The most important change which has taken place in the past year was the organization of the department of health created by the Jones Act. Section 19 specifies the composition and duties of this department, as follows: "That the commissioner of health shall have general charge of all matters relating to public health, sanitation, and charities, except such as relate to the conduct of maritime quarantine, and shall perform such other duties as may be prescribed by law." In accordance with the provisions of this paragraph, the following assignment was made by you under date of March 2: "I hereby certify that on March 3, 1917, the executive council approved the following assignments by the governor, under the provisions of the new organic act, of the following bureaus and institutions which have heretofore been under the department of labor, charities and correction: All the so-called charity institutions, including the insane asylum and the blind asylum, to the department of health, sanitation, and charities. "The entire work and duties heretofore performed by the director of sanitation, to the department of health, sanitation, and charities. **(Signed) P. DE CASTRO, Secretary, Executive Council.” This act recognizes the importance of public health work by putting the head of the department on a level with the heads of other departments and making him member of the executive council as organized under the Foraker Act until the organization of the first legislature, and after that period a member of the executive council to be organized and which is to perform such duties as may be assigned to it by the governor. However, it has the dangerous effect of bringing the department under the influence of partisan politics. The Service of Sanitation created by the act of the legislature in 1911 was organized on a basis of absolute independence of political influences, and political activity of any kind has been considered sufficient ground for immediate dismissal from the service. The efficiency of the service has been demonstrated so frequently, not only in the control of epidemics, such as the bubonic plague in 1912 and smallpox in 1916, but also in the general sanitary conditions in the island, that Porto Rico has become recognized and known as the best of the West Indies from a sanitary point of view and one of the best under the American Government. On the organization of the service it was established as a fixed rule that appointments should be made to the lower positions in the service only, and that higher positions should be filled from those who had proven their capacity and their attention to duty while in the subordinate positions, these promotions being made on the recommendation of the immediate superior and on a record of efficiency which has been kept in this office. This principle of promotion by merit has been so thoroughly recognized in the service that many of its officers have lost all political affiliation, and such men would be in serious danger of losing their positions under an administration in which the head of a department was a political appointee, owing his position to political influence rather than to a record of efficiency and impartiality. In the belief that the head of this department would continue to be nonpolitical and impartial, the act of 1912 and the sanitary regulations which have been prepared under that act place in the hands of the head of the department a power which wil be exceedingly dangerous if exercised by an active politician. Efficient service in |