Evening Post. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1941. COERCION IN ABSENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1941, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1941. COERCION IN ABSENCE

After all the promises t and fair words spoken when the Government met the doctors publicly, the coercive amendment introduced last week is an unpleasant shock. The coercion that is the basis of the scheme would be undeniable, even if the earlier veiled threats of the Minister of Health had not given warning of such a course. Doctors are not to be compelled to serve, but they will be unable to earn a living except under the conditions arbitrarily laid down by the Government—conditions which the Government is well aware are objectionable'to the iprofession. And this is to be done while one-third of the members of the profession are away on military service and the other two-thirds are working night, and day so that the medical care of the civil population shall not suffer. It would be difficult }o imagine anything more unfair to members of a profession that has always displayed the highest sense of public duty.

The fundamental objections of the medical profession to the BilK are concisely stated by the president of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association.

In the first place, he states, it forces a revolutionary and: socialistic change upon our profession behind the baqks of ,those of, our '-members who are serving in the forces overseas; and, secondly, it substitutes conscription for private rights as a permanent feature of medical practice. , . .In plain English, the present proposals amount to permanent and peacetime conscription of; the medical profession, and they present a set of terms and conditions which the present Government would neither wish nor dare to imppse, even on the weakest and least significant trade union in this Dominion., ■ - -'.-,.'.

The contrast between the Government's treatment of the medical profession and its concern for the rights of trade unionists 'is glaring. Voluntary negotiation and arbitra-, tion are recognised as the rights of workers; but on the doctors the Government, without agreement, and without arbitration, imposes its own conditions of service. For workers who serve as soldiers the Government gives a guarantee that they | shall" have their jobs back, and it does not hesitate to prosecute employers who fail to comply with the law. For the doctors who have voluntarily gone overseas there is to be a revolutionary change in working conditions while they are away, without consultation with them and with scant consideration for their colleagues here who are striving to preserve their rights.

We can see the dilemma in which ■ the Government is placed with a General Election drawing near. For, almost three years it has been collecting money from the public for a general medical service without supplying it. The promise of such a service was made without warrant, for the profession had told the Government plainly that its scheme was unacceptable. The i profession had submitted instead a far more comprehensive and beneficial scheme, not confined to general practitioner service (which, after all, is not a heavy cost except to the very poor), but affording aid according to need and including, in its scope the specialist services which are the heaviest cost of illness. The Government rejected this better plan and has since tried in all ways to break down the resistance of the profession. Now, faced with the possible political consequences of its mistaken policy, it is resorting to coercion of a kind that it would never think of applying to a small trade union. If this is to be permitted, •it will not be the doctors alone who will suffer. Individual liberty-—applauded when proclaimed in the Churchill' Roosevelt charter—will be seriously undermined, and denied to a profession that has taken a worthy part in upholding it. What profession, trade, or other occupation can show a better war record than the doctors, with a third of the strength serving? And when its strength is weakened by war service is the time chosen for coercion.