HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17699, 20 November 1925, Page 6

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING, DUPLICATING THE CABLES. The work of duplicating the Pacific Cable Board’s cable from Vancouver Fiji will be completed next- year. The ronnec *tion between Australia and F iji has already been completed, and the whole will b*> able to give double service early next year. “THE ROAD TO RUIN." Under the heading of “The Road to Ruin, the “ Dolphin,” the magazine of the Imperial Merchant Service Guild 1 which represents the captains and. navigating officers of the British mer- , cantile marine), in its October issue. I published a warning against the effects of the seamen's strike. “A vicious and diabolical attack,” it is stated, “ has been made by means of Communists and their propaganda the world over to destroy all the good influences which have existed in the merchant service amongst the different classes of seafarers from the highest to the lowest. . These good influences which have existed have, of a certainty, served the best interests of employers and employees alike. . Even amongst the executive officers of the mercantile marine within the last few years there have been signs here and there of an inclination to uproot the existing order of things, whereby many have followed the lead of a few misguided people in endeavouring to cripple organisations like the guild—organisations which even they cannot, and do not. deny, have for years past been staunch and true to the interests they represent and have been responsible for immense imprdvements and reforms of many evils which hitherto obtained. . . . In the course of the present trouble the position of the representatives of the masters and officers on the National Maritime Board and of the masters and officers themselves has been more than obvious, and that is, to adhere loyally to the agreements which have been arrived at on the board, just as much as the shipowners are expected, as a matter of course, themselves to conform to these agreements, and to see that they are carried out* 34 34 34 ARRESTING A SHIP. With the arrest of the Thames whisky ship, General Serret, may people learned for the first time that a ship can be arrested. The law of maritime arrest is very complicated, but it appears that having committed a. crime a vessel can be followed until she is caught, even if she has passed into different ownership since her lapse from grace. She must, however, be arrested in a port where the courts of the country which has ordered the arrest have jurisdiction, and there are many vessels afloat to-day that avoid making voyages to certain countries because there is a warrant out against them there. The crimes that a vessel can commit .are varied, but the most common is damaging another vessel, nr piers, or docks, by collision. In such cases a vessel can be arrested until security for the damage is given or liability for damage has been decided in the courts. Evading dock and harbour dues is another offence for which a vessel can be arrested- As in the case of the General Serret. arrest can also be made on an allegation that the owner has not paid seme debt. A ship is arrested by nailing the warrant to a prominent part, generally a mast. Some vessels cannot be arrested, for they belong to nations and not to private owners, and by international law are immune from legal process. Th’s was all very well when nations owned only warships and the like, because it was essential that a mano’-war about to sail for battle should not be held up in port on some frivolous pretext. Today. however, many nations own commercial ships, and naturally the private shipowners resent the legal immunity which their State-owned competitors enjoy. So pressing has the matter become that the International Maritime Committee, which is abont to meet at Genoa, is devoting much cf its time to the discussion of the problem, and it is nrobable that the International law dealing with the immunity of State-owned ships will • shortly be amended. THE HUMAN TOUCH IN MEDICINE. / “Steep yourself as deeply as you Tike in the knowledge and lore of your craft, but don’t forget the human touch.** This was the message which Major lan IT ay Beith ("lan Hay”) conveyed to Guy's Hospital Medical School in delivering the opening address of the winter session in the Physiology Lecture Theatre. Major Beith said that while he ccnpared character or personality with technical knowledge and ability, neither could be regarded as a substitute for the other. No force of character, no attractiveness of personality-. could ever compensate for ignorance in ones profession. Personality was not only a useful but an invaluable appendage to a professional man • equipment but it could never constitute the equipment. There was a general and a dangerous tendency in the world today to exploit personality to an absurd degree, to the neglect and detriment of real training and thorough knowledge. \Ye were living in an age of advertisement, in an age where people were tending more and more to expend their energies not upon putting quality into their goods, but upon thinking out ingenious and profitable methods of disposing of their goods. A doctor was above all things a propagandist To a certain extent he was always playing a part, backing up the resources of science by the art of the skilled advocate; mixing the powder and the jam in such proportions that the powder escaped notice, yet achieved its purpose; doing everything, in fact, that was morally justifiable to create, maintain, and increase the moral of the patient and his confidence in his own chances of speedy recoverv. Cheery common sense and unprofessional informality did more to benefit a patient than the whole British pharmacopoeia.