FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CŒLUM.

Press, Volume XIX, Issue 2811, 6 May 1872, Page 3

FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CŒLUM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sib, —Since the passing of the Medical Practitioners Act of 1869, I have been grieved to observe the way in which the numerous petitions to our Houses of Parliament have been treated by our legislators. You are fully aware that the Medical Practitioners Act of 1567 allowed fill persons to register who could prove to their having been in practice in the Colony of New Zealand prior to 1857, whether sucli persons held certificates or not. This was a magnanimous act on the part of the Government, and was a vested right conceded to all such persons. I am at a loss to understand, however, the object in fixing the term of ten years. It is a well-known fact that no school of medicine in the world makes ten years the limit of time necessary for graduates to qualify themselves. Again, why say New Zealand, and thus exclude all other parts of her Majesty's dominions ? Does not this 14th Clause of the Act, 18G7, appear as though intended only to favor a few ? On reference to the register what do we see there, viz., Ujat only ten availed themselves of this clause. The most singular part of the circumstance counected with the whole affair is when this happy " Deni " was nicely placed upon the roll, the door by which they entered is at once closed, made fast, bolted and made bullet proof, so to speak, fearful lest others should enter by tho same road, although as justly entitled to have done so as the teu whose names grace the register of IS7O. This brings mc back to my original query, viz., why teu years 1 and why New Zealand only ? Surely it is within the recollection of many of .the profession that when the Medical Practitioners' Act was passed in England in ISl<3, respect was therein provided to existing rights. As you are probably aware all persons then in practice (that is when the Bill became law) were allowed to continue and henceforth were considered as duly qualilied praetitiouers. Not so, however, with our colonial legislators in 1867 ; an Act is passed, called the Medical Practitioners' Act, with the saving clause so as to allow the happy ten to register, viz., one for each year (strange coincidence), aud all the rest were left out in the cold. Aud why ? because members were not aware of what was beiug done ; so that when they applied to be registered they were refused, and were told that anew Act had been passed in 1860, and the clause by which the ten had entered had been struck out, and the consequence was, so were the applicants ever after the above date. Surely this was not justice. During the last two sittings of the House of Parliament there were several persons petitioned for redress, with the following result: in the Lower House their prayer was granted, but in the Upper they (the Councii) proved themselves the. nursery of the legitimate orthodox profession, the Mantell of protection was cast around them, lest the profession should degenerate itself into a " set of BasliiB&zouks." Vide Hansard, No. 25, IS7I, page 996.

Brethren, all who were in practice when • this Act became law, and who were thus shut out from registering—you who have labored faithfully in the cause of a humane and honorable profession, one in which many of you were cradled, —arouse yourselves, buckle on your armour, unite as one man for the purpose of seeking reform of that most unjust and iniquitous Act. Our laws are not the laws of the Modes and Persians, for nothing is more common than ?t each succeding session to amend and alter the legislation of the preceding ope. Let us then hope by adopting a constitutional mode of procedure to be enabled to repeal the Act above referred to ; for surely in this free and enlightened country, and that in the nineteenth century, our rights and privileges are not to be trampled under foot. Yours, &c, Medicus.