TO COST £50,000.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 47, 25 February 1937, Page 7

TO COST £50,000.

PHYSICIANS , COLLEGE.

TO BE BUILT IN SYDNEY.

MELBOURNE GIVES WAT. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, February 10. The Associated Physicians of Australia met in r<inference, at Melbourne last Saturday and came to a momentous decision. The conference resolved that if all the financial facilities needed are available, the projected Australasian College of Physician* shall be erected in Sydney. This U a mutter about which public feeling here has been seriously exercised, not only in the runks of the medical profession, but among ordinary laymen and civilians an well. The Senate of Sydney University has offered a site adjacent to the Medical School, and the. State Government, anxious to assist in the promotion of so worthy an object, him promised jCU.j.OOO toward the cost. As the total outlay will be not less than £.>u,(>ou, a considerable margin is left for private generosity to nil. There is little doulit, however, thut the wealthy and j.ublicspirited citizen* of Sydney will prove themselves equal to their responsibilities in this matter. L'p to last Saturday, however, there was considerable doubt whether opposition from Melbourne might not defeat Sydney's laudable ambition*. The University and the citizens of Melbourne were equally anxious that the proposed college should be established in the southern capital, and a special committee, headed by Sir Charles Blackburn, appointed at a meeting convened in the Town Hall by our Lord Mayor, wii* sent down from Sydney to Melbourne to plead our cause. So doubt the offer of a site and a £25,000 subsidy for a Sydney college carried weight with the Associated I'hywicians of Australia. Fine Public Spirit. It says something for the public spirit of our Melbourne friends that they recognised the force of quite a different argument which was impressed upon them by Sir Charles Blackburn. The head of the Sydney deputation pointed out that Melbourne already possesses the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, and it was only just and equitable that the new College of Physicians should be allocated to Sydney. Aβ one of the delegates at the Melbourne conference pointed out, if the headquarters of the medical and surgical establishments were located in different States, they would be able to draw upon large areas for professional assistance, ajid "this would enable a wider and better co-oj>eiation to be effected." However this may be, it seems that the decision to set up the College of Physicians in Sydney has been reached with the full approval of the Melbourne academic and professional authorities, and their goodwill in this matter is well assured. One argument in favour of Melbourne's claim was that a wealthy Melbourne business man had offered to donate half the cost of the erection up to £25,000 if it were erected in Melbourne. The advocates for the establishment of the college in Sydney, however, are now so confident of Melbourne's supj)ort that they believe the generous citizen may be induced to extend Inn donation, at least in part, to cover portion of the cost of the Sydney institution. The realisation of this hope would surely mark a turning point in the long and painful road of rivalry between these two great cities.