THE CHEMISTS AND THE SHOPS BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9722, 18 January 1895, Page 4

THE CHEMISTS AND THE SHOPS BILL.

We have heard lately much controversy about whether Wednesday or Saturday should be adopted as the half-holiday for shops. But there is one point in the Act which has not yet been discussed. In the 4th clause of this unjust Act there are the following sub-sections : — (2) All chemists' shops may be opened for the supply of medicines anil surgical appliances only between the hours of seven and nine o'clock in the evening, but not longer, on the day appointed for the closing of shops ; and (3), any chemist may, at any time in the afternoon of a day appointed for the closing of shops, supply any medicine or surgical appliance which is urgently required ; but he shall then open his shop "only for such "purpose." That is to say, a chemist must close his shop on the day appointed for the half-holiday, but he is permitted to keep a qualified dispenser in his shop "who may supply any medicine or surgical appliance which is urgently required," but who must do no other business whatever. The inspector would of course, after the system now in vogue in this free country, have no difficulty in proving that a box of pills sold to relieve a constipation was not " urgently required." The chemists, we understand, are not going to lay themselves and their customers open to this system of hateful espionage to please Mr. Reeves. They will simply close their shops altogether, and leave those who require medicines or surgical appliances urgently to apply for them to Mr. Ferguson at the Labour Bureau. The result of this may be that life will be lost. It is, however, absurd to think that a chemist will remain at his shop when it is closed, and when all other shops are closed, on the off-chance of being applied to for a sixpenceof medicine which is "urgently required." How is that urgency to be determined? The chemist would have to get up an argument and explanation with everyone who knocked. And then, perhaps, after half-an-hour's cross-examination of the would-be customer, he would, as a conscientious man, and one anxious to obey Mr. Reeves's decrees, be compelled to say: " My good man (or woman, as the case might be) I admit that your child does, according to your statement of the symptoms, much want that dose of paregoric which you apply for; but still I doubt if 1 can say that it is a case of urgency under Mr. Reeves's

statute, and therefore, although I have lost half-an-hour in bearing your argument, I must close the door in your face. Your child must suffer until tomorrow. Yonder comes the inspector. Go." Perhaps even at this eleventh hour an Order-in-Council could be issued to the effect that any chemist could accept a physician's certificate as an evidence of urgency. But, then, what about a holiday for physicians ? Are they to be put without the pale, like newspaper men