DISPERSED GERMAN DOCTORS.

Evening Star, Issue 21719, 14 May 1934, Page 8

DISPERSED GERMAN DOCTORS.

As correspondents point out, there are two sides to the question of admitting to New Zealand doctors and dentists who have been dispersed from Germany because they happen to bo Jews. In the professions concerned some anxiety has been felt at the possibility of undue additions being made from this source to callings that are already overcrowded. Already in New Zealand there is a doctor to every 1,000 of population, and a good many of them find it difficult to collect their fees. About fifty are added annually to the register, and if a superfluity of recruits was not discouraged it would bo easy to get from the Medical School in one year as many new practitioners as are required for three. The doctor has to live as well as his patients, and that makes the strongest reason why foreign intrusions should not be desired by him. On the other hand, there is point in the contention which one correspondent puts forward and another develops that if there is to be competition in anything it should start with the health of the community. Not all doctors are as efficient as others, and where would-be German newcomers might bring new knowledge, Germany having been till these days a chief home of science, it would be a benefit to the community to lot them in. One has been admitted already, and is now in Dunedin, a doctor of dentistry, of medicine, a ml also of philosophy., who had beeu chosen by his fellows to rep re-

sent their profession at more than one international conference. Ho is attending classes at present to perfect his speaking knowledge of the English language, and he docs nut desire to practise so much as to pursue research. The war was a tragedy to him as much as to millions of Germans, and millions of other countries, who were not Jons. It is understood that after he passes a final examination at the end of this year he will be admitted to the New Zealand medical register. He did not gain entrance to this country easily, but a very short view of our own potential interests would have been exhibited if such a man, in such circumstances, bad been excluded. Great Britain has welcomed these German exiles. She has done so not only from compassion, but in accordance with a long tradition which she has found to pay. Flemish weavers, at an early time, founded the British wool manufacturing industry. The French Huguenots who settled in England, bringing now arts, when they were persecuted by Louis XIV., became one of the most useful elements of the population. Eviction policies have had always most injury for the countries that have pursued them. By the expulsion of the Huguenots France lost in twenty years more than half a million of her most active, enterprising, and industrious citizens; and, nowithstanding all the persecutions, about two millions continued to adhere to the Protestant religion. The decline of Spain began when she drove out the Moors. Germany has yet to learn the cost of expelling her brains. But that is by the way. The Now Zealand concern—in so far as there is concern—lias been caused by the hospitality of Great Britain. The medical course in Germany is one of four years. Durham University and some others have allowed German doctors to qualify for British registration after a furtheryear’s course. That registration will entitle them to be registered in New Zealand. How many are likely to want to come here, out of 200 or 300 who are enjoying the British privilege, is a question impossible to answer. Most of them may be absorbed by Great Britain. The world is large for the others; New Zealand is a little country and the most remote part of it. But it might be more tempting than life in Portuguese West Africa, where it is suggested that millions of German, Polish, Austrian, and Rumanian Jews may be settled. There is another reason, reaching further than economic self-interest, why the Medical Council cannot wish to see too many of them come to this dominion. The medical profession has high standards to maintain in regard to methods of practice which its eschews, as well as those which it follows. They would not bo maintained more easily if a proportion of doctors found it too hard to live while maintaining the highest traditions, and any relaxation of those would be against the pnblic interest. A small country might be swamped more easily than a largely-populated one like Great Britain. Actually there is no cause yet for anyone to fear. The matter is in our own hands. The Immigration Restriction Act of 1931 gives the Minister of Customs the most complete control over immigration, and no Germans are being admitted at present except upon the merits of each particular case. That is the only policy to continue.