H.—3l

V

I cannot help thinking that the solution of the difficulty lies not in refusing the Maori admittance to the general hospital, but in requiring him to do as his whiter brother does—pay rates on all property held. From an intimate knowledge of Maoris throughout the colony, I am certain that they would welcome this recognition of brotherhood, provided equal rights were given. It is no business of mine to suggest alterations in policy, but I feel certain (hat many causes of irritation would be removed if all distinction between Maori and pakeha ceased to exist. The salvation of the race lies in its coming closer and closer with the other members of the community. While I can confidently say that no other country acts more liberally or with a greater evidence of brotherhood towards its Native population than does New Zealand, still, if the remnant is to be raised to its proper position in the body politic, all discriminating laws must be abolished. With the attachment of Dr. Te Rangi Hiroa to the staff of the Department a more intimate supervision of the health and sanitary conditions of the Maori has been possible. Dr. Pomare has been placed in charge of the South Island and that portion of the North as far as the Wellington and Hawke's Bay provincial districts. Dr. Te Rangi Hiroa has been stationed at Auckland, and, although his area is smaller, he has plenty of work, inasmuch as a large portion of our Native population reside north of New Plymouth. Illicit Practice of Medicine and Sale of "Patent Medicines." There was passed last year a modest and unassuming amendment to the Postal Act which, under the administration of my old and valued friend the late Mr. Gray and his successor in the responsible position of Secretary to the Post Office, Mr. Robertson, has effected an unexpected amount of good. The law reads as follows: — "9. (1.) If the Postmaster-General has at any time reasonable ground to suppose any person in New Zealand or elsewhere to be engaged— "(a.) In receiving any money or valuable thing as the consideration for any assurance or agreement, expressed or implied, to pay or give any money or valuable thing on any event or contingency relating to any horse-race or other race, fight, game, sport, or exercise, or as the consideration for securing the paying or giving by some other person of any money or valuable thing on any such event or contingency as aforesaid; or " (b.) In promoting or carrying out any scheme connected with any such assurance or agreement, or any lottery, scheme of chance, or unlawful game; or " (c.) In receiving money under pretence of foretelling future events; or " (d.) In any fraudulent, obscene, immoral, or unlawful business or undertaking; or " (c.) In advertising in direct or indirect terms the treatment of diseases of the sexual organs,— then the Postmaster-General may, by notification under his hand in the Gazette, order that no postal packet addressed to any such person (either by his own or any fictitious or assumed name), or to any address without a name, shall be either registered, forwarded, or delivered by the Post Office. "(2.) Such notification shall specify every such name, whether real, fictitious, or assumed, and every such address in respect of which such order is made. " (3.) Until such order is in like manner revoked no such postal packet shall be registered, forwarded, or delivered, nor shall any money-order be issued in such person's favour, or be paid to him. "(4.) This section is in substitution for section twenty-seven of the principal Act, which section is hereby accordingly repealed." In virtue of the power given in subsections (d) and (c), most of the vultures who fattened on the fears of the misguided youth or the simplicity of the elderly man about town, have, so to speak, been warned off the course. Their letters breathing the most tender solicitude and interest in their clients have ceased to reach their victims, and in consequence many of them have sought fresh pastures and fields anew. It can be readily understood what efforts have been made by these bleeders of the neurotic. Faced with the possible exclusion from operating in such valuable seams as undoubtedly exist in all countries, they have used such weapons as might be expected. Newspapers have been threatened by loss of revenue, the cry of medical oppression has been raised, while some have even stooped to bribery; yet, despite it all, lam pleased to place on record the fact that any paper of standing in the colony has agreed not only to accept the Postmaster-General's ruling gladly, but has endeavoured in every possible way to throw out advertisements which were