BRITISH MEDICAL CONGRESS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20088, 18 November 1930, Page 14

BRITISH MEDICAL CONGRESS.

WINNIPEG GATHERING. DR. E. C. HAYES RETURNS. [IKS PRESS Special Berries.) WELLINGTON, November 17. Two departures from tho usual custom were made at the British Medical Conference held at Winnipeg in August, according to Dr. E. C. Hayes, of Christchurch, who returned by the Maunganui to-day. At the opening ceremony when the new president assumed office the wife of the incoming president, Mrs Harvey Smith, of Winnipeg, was presented with a badge of office by the outgoing president, Professor Burgess, of Liverpool. "In most courtier-like style ho kissed the lady's hand as he presented the badge," said Dr. Hayes. The British Medical Association dinner was also a departure inasmuch as ladies were present, Dr. Hayes continued. At the dinner there was a toast to the ladies, to which Mrs Harvey »Smith responded in one of the best speeches of the evening. The dinner was held in the Hudson Bay Company's rooms, and there were- betwen 1600 and 1700 guest delegates. It would be hard to find a hall elsewhere which would accommodate such a large gathering. Butter Tariff. Dr. Hayes, who left New Zealand last July and spent some time travelling in Canada and the United States, expressed the opinion that the Canadian election was won on the propaganda of the "iniquity" of New Zealand butter. "The Canadians are the greatest buttereaters in the world," he said. "In the restaurants and dining cars on trains your plate is never allowed to be empty of butter. They force it on you. Canada used to be a butter exporting country, but now it does not export a pound. Milk and cream are sent into the larga cities for ice-cream manufacture, which seems to be more profitable and to require less work than turning it into butter. The ordinary housewife does not appreciate the restriction against New Zealand butter for it means that

sho has to pay more for what Bhe requires. The people who are making the profit out of the new tariff are the members of a ring of butter dealers who manipulate storage butter so as to get high prices." Industrial Depression. The United Stated on the whole was in rather a bad way, said Dr. Hayes. Ford's factory was working only three days a week, and this could be taken as an index to the industrial situation. Factories in every other branch of industry were working on similar lines, and Ford's three-day week was common to the majority of them. Los Angeles seemed to him to be the most prosperous place in America, and a city with every appearance of becom-

ing the greatest in the world. He spoke for some time on the wonderful resources, natural and artificially created, which conspired to make Los Angeles a remarkable city. At present a huge hydro-electric scheme was going to provide Los Angeles with vast amounts of the cheapest electricity in the world. Liquor Question. "In New York you can ring up your bootlegger and order your whisky just as you would from your wine and spirit merchant here," said Dr. E. C. Hayes. Ordering in the normal way from a bootlegger as was done in New York was attended by the danger of being caught, but very few seemed to get into trouble in that way. In Chicago the situation was even freer. The policeman in Chicago went off his beat and had his beer in a speakeasy. Dr. Hayes happened to be in Boston at the time when the annual reunion of the American Legions was held. About 75,000 members attended, and they held a procession which lasted from 10 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night, traversing and retraversing the city's streets. The day's work resulted in 400 people being taken to hospital suffering from alcoholic poisoning. Four of them died, and there were a number of cases ef blindness. Alcohol was sold openly in the squares in the presence and full view of the police. The general opinion in the United States was that a stronger form of beer would shortly be introduced. A number of the larger breweries, especially in Milwaukee, were installing special plants for the purpose of manufacturing such a beverage.