NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16377, 3 November 1916, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

EARLY CLOSING IN VICTORIA.

A new licensing law, requiring all hotel and club bars to be closed at 6 p.m.. came into operation in Victoria on October 25. Formerly the liquor trade was conducted between 6.50 a.m. and 11.30 p.m.. and special permits for later trading were given in certain cases. In .July of last year the period for trading was reduced to from 9 a.m. to 9.30 p.m., and tinder the Intoxicating Liquor (Temporary Restrictions Act. the period has been further reduced to from 9 a.m. to 6 p.in. The position of those in residence at hotels and clubs, whom the law defines as "lodgers,'' has not been altered. The bars of hotels must be closed and locked ; but '• soft " drinks may be sold on the premises, the onus resting on persons discovered by the police on licensed premises after hours of proving that they are not there to obtain intoxicants. The Government proposes to introduce a Bill providing compensation for hotelkcepers affected by the early closing. POLITICS IN CHTNA. 'Hie new President of China, Li YuanHung, opened the Parliament on August 2. and in the presence of the members declared his intention of doing his duty as President according to the terms of the Constitution. The Parliament thus reopened after an interval of nearly three years is time-expired long ago, apart from i its arbitrary dissolution by luan Shih-Kai. It has in reality no constitutional existence, and its reincarnation is merely a concession, in the interests of peace, to the demands of the noisiest party in the State, the revolutionaries, or, more particularly, the Kuomintang. The most tangible thing in China at, the present moment is military force, and although there is now a Parliament and a democratic President, and all the appearances of a constitutional regime, nothing alters the fact that the whole situation is at the mercy of the generals who control large bodies of troops. Certain of these generals, including the Premier, Tuan Chijui, are believed to he in agreement, They are willing to five Parliament an opportunity to establish itself as a useful institution". It is supposed that if the resuscitated Parliament fails to conduct itself with sense and propriety they will immediately dissolve it and summon another on a greatly restricted basis. The generals in question are believed to hav* the patriotic intention to do their best for the countrv. But there, are other generals whose "motives are not so clear, and whose actions at the present time appear the reverse of patriotic Thus military intervention would be liable to have disastrous consequences for it could not be foretold how far it might go, or whom it might involve. Military intervention, in fact, might result in the loosing of the winds and the creation of indescribable chaos.

PREVENTION- OF DISEASE. Surgical organisation in war, according to Sir Alfred Keogh, who has contributed an article on the subject to the British Journal of Surgery, falls into two great divisions—prevention of disease and collection, removal, and care of the sick and wounded. Under the latter head a high tribute is paid to our surgeons. Sir Alfred concludes a suggestive article with the following statement, to which the attention of all those interested in medical education may be drawn:—" If the logic of events has obliged us to display a tendency to specialisation of work it can only be because the necessity of some such process has been forced upon us. The truth is that without it full efficiency cannot be attained, and I am myself convinced that the more the organisation of hospitals into special departments is pursued the greater will bo the degree -if efficiency reached. It would appear to be the case that in seeking to avoid a narrow specialism in hospital organisation we have failed in our profession to establish sufficient differentiation of functions, and that we demand from the general surgeon a more extensive knowledge than lie can nowadays possess. Experience lias shown and continues to show that in such departments research is encouraged and knowledge acquired and diffused more readily than could otherwise have been the case. One cannot avoid an nncomiortable feeling that if hospitals in civil life had been organised on such a plan a higher efficiency would have been manifest at the outset." Finally, /he all-import-ant question is put— the medical profession in the future "devote more con sideration than it has hitherto given to its relation to the public and to public departments? For everything depends upon this." These words are vital; they concern the public no less than the doctors. It has been found possible to prevent disease in a mighty army—hitherto the impossible—the time is come when we must demand equal efficiency in our civil life.