ELECTRICITY FOR THE NORTH

Northland Age, Volume 5, Issue 35, 29 May 1936, Page 6

ELECTRICITY FOR THE NORTH

THE Conference of representatives of all the Northern local bodies at Rangiahua on Friday, which accepted the scheme submitted to them for the creation of an Electric Power Board to link up with the central supply from Arapuni, has done a wise and a timely thing. The sum deemed necessary to carry out the plans, £275,000 seems large, but the consulting engineers, who made a survey of the district, are satisfied that the system, when it is in working order, will prove self-supporting, and not in any way a burden on the ratepayers.

Tnat the extension of the electricity supply system to the Far North will assist greatly in its development no one will question. And no one who has visited a country district already served and seen how a supply of current lightened the labours and added to the comfort of settlers, can doubt that the necessarv cost of installation is a profitable investment. To have light, heat, and power always on tap at the turning of a switch means the saving of much drudgery as well as the literal lighting of much country darkness. With the many handy household electric appliances, the electric current has taken much work off women’s shoulders, and given them a little of the leisure their town sisters enjoy. It is to be hoped that as little time as possible will be lost in pushing forward with the initial work. There still clings to the North a'little of the old on - going spirit, that loved leisurely discussion and plenty of time to make up one’s mind. Certainly every necessary information should be placed before the ratepayers before they are asked to pledge themselves for so large a sum, but we have the successful experience of other districts to go on, and, weighing the very little risk against the certain benefits, it does not seem to call for much consideration. That a gathering of representative men, familiar both with their districts and the administration of local affairs, endorsed the scheme, should carry great weight with tne doubtful, if any there be. THE DOCTOR AND HIS JOB

npHERE is an old French ■ rhyme that asks humorously : Isn’t medicine fine ? Little ailments are beneath its notice and great ones beyond it pov Ters. And it has a companion jibe in English : Doctors are men who pour medicines of which the- know little into bodies of which they know less. Whatever sting there ever was in these jokes has largely gone. During the present century there has been an enormous accumulation and extension of medical knowledge, especially in the in-ter-relation of the mind and the body. In surgery, operations that only stop short of the miraculous, are performed today with a safety and skill beyond praise. But this progress has of necessity involved a further application of the principle of the division of labour in the medical field. The territory is now too large for any one man to cover it even superficially. It is literally true that experts, here as else-

where, are men whd are getting to know more about less and less. So Nature is mastered and enlisted in the service of man.

Some knowledge of the true nature of disease and its treatment is filtering into the public mind. The doctor is not now largely regarded as a “medicine man” who is expected to perform miracles with pills and potions and charms covered with mystic symbols and Latin fragments. Nature is relentless to her debtors, presenting her bills at due date, and demanding a settlement. But if one does not get too deeply into her debt, she is as ready, on repentance and amendment, to cure as to kill. And all that the medical profession can do—and today that is much—is to helo Nature in her good work. That demands deep knowledge and great skill, coordination, and co-operation The war with disease is no skirmish, but a war that needs massed battalions. The chief end of the State is to make its people healthy and happy by surrounding them with the means of securing health and happiness. The best—and incidents the cheapest—way to cure disease is to prevent it. In the Dominion we have made a beginning—rather a tentative beginning—in that direction but that needs to be extended. It is rather a reproach to us that we are more alert to prevent and cure disease among stock than among our people, for after all human beings are really of more value than cattle. Sickness and accident is not a private ailair, but something in which the community is intimately concerned, even if only from the purely economic point of view. To keep people healthy and to bring them back to health as thoroughly and quickly as possible should be our first form of defence expenditure, and ought to be the only one. That our present system is satisfactory no one whose opinion is worth anything will claim. The only plea is that it is the best we can do with the

means at our disposal. But is it ? Are we ready to put aside all prejudice parochial and other—and consider the question with a single eye to the greatest good of the people of the North? To let any other feelings intrude is not only mean-spirited, but childish.

In our large cities the poorest in need of medical skill and care has the best to attend to his need at once, the richest can command no more. Why should this not be equally true of the country? It is no reflection on our medical men to say that our present oneman hospital system is out-of-date, unsatisfactory from the modern point of view, and, from the financial, inefficient and expensive. That is unavoidable under our present system, the only people blameworthy are those who refuse to consider its improvement. That the Health Department largely holds this view is no secret. Unless there is a movement of reform from within, there will be change from without. This would in many ways be a pity. The ties between a hospital and the people it serves should be close, and the management as far as is wisely possible, in their hands. We have far too much centralisation already, and we should give as little excuse for it as possible. But change is in the air, and in a question of efficiency local prejudices will, quite rightly, have short shrift.