ALCOHOL SUPPLIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 63, 15 March 1945, Page 8

ALCOHOL SUPPLIES

TO PUBLIC HOSPITALS

CONTROLLED BY STAFF

Dr. F. S. Maclean, of the Health Department, was recalled for crossexamination by Mr. R." Hardie Boys, counsel for the New Zealand Alliance, when the Royal Commission on Licensing resumed today. The witness had previously submitted to the Commission a statement on behalf of his Department.

Dr. Maclean agreed that alcohol was an important factor in the prevalence of venereal disease.

His Department, he said, had no control over the supplies of alcohol in the hospitals in the Dominion: that duty was left to the resident staff. He was not aware that there had been a considerable decrease in the quantity of alcohol supplied to the Auckland Hospital. He was not aware that his Department had made approaches to the Social Security Department because of alleged abuses of social security and family allowances by Maoris.

Counsel: Are you of opinion that all bottled liquors should be labelled so as to indicate the spirit contents? —I should like time to consider that.

Questioned about an application that had been received from an Auckland firm for the manufacture of gin in New Zealand, the witness replied that his Department had not been consulted. Neither was he aware of an alleged case of unclean bottles in the Pacific as a result of which certain New Zealand soldiers had become ill.

The bottles, said counsel, had at one time contained sheep dip. To Mr. Lan Macarthur (for the National Council of the Licensed Trade of New Zealand), the witness said he was in charge of the Department's Division of Hygiene. He had compiled the report for presentation to the Commission, and it had been approved in its entirety by the Director-General. Questioned as to his statement that licensees frequently had been unable to pay a high rent and maintain their premises, the witness said: "Perhaps it would be more correct to say 'at times;'"

Counsel: I put it to you that that is a very material difference.

Questioned as to his statement that breweries should be inspected periodically and their hygienic conditions examined, Dr. Maclean said that, while it was true inspectors had the authority to do so, the examinations had not, in his opinion, been systematic.

(Proceeding.)