THE RED SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 116, 12 November 1935, Page 12

THE RED SEA

ITALIAN TRANSPORTS

"MEN PACKED LIKE CATTLE"

"During the trip through the Red Sea we passed two Italian transports and the men were packed like cattle in a truck," said Dr. E. H. M. Luke, of Wellington, in an interview with a "Post" representative yesterday on his return by the Monowai from a trip abroad. Dr. Luke said that the weather at the time was unusually hot and the men on the transport must have found it almost unbearable. Going through the Suex Canal some empty Italian transports were passed on their way back home. At Genoa there was a great deal of activity, several Italian ships being hurriedly loaded with men and equipment for service in Abyssinia. Dr. Luke left England on the return journey to New Zealand after hostilities had commenced, and he said that this influenced a number of people to cancel bookings on the Dutch boat in which he travelled to Java. "The vessel was only quarter-full," he said. A week's stay in Bali convinced Dr. Luke that the island is really "enchanted." So f^r it was unspoilt by tourists, and the natives retained their picturesque customs. An interesting point concerning the island was the intense cultivation by the natives. The potentially arable land was worked right up to the hilltops, and this was evidence of the industriousness of the "local man on the land." A close study of the surgical clinics in London and on the Continent was made by Dr. Luke, who said that postgraduate work in England had improved greatly during recent years. A new and thoroughly up-to-date post-gradu-ate school would soon be opened in London. A great deal more enthusiasm for postgraduate work, however, was shown by visiting medical men than by the London profession. This was due, to a large extent, to the panel system adopted as a result of the introduction of a national insurance scheme, which meant that a doctor had an assured income. With this scheme in operation there was not the same incentive for a doctor to improve his knowledge. The standard of general practice in the medical profession in New Zealand, said Dr. Luke, was higher than in England.