IS IT BEER ?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 25, 17 November 1944, Page 4

IS IT BEER ?

Sir ? — Regarding your report under the above title in, last Friday's Beacon. That the incidence of T.B. amongst the Maoris is increasing is unquestioned. That it is a pressing cause for concern is unquestioned. That the problem of coping with the disease is extremely difficult is unquestioned. But. that the administrative group elected by the public to conduct their hospital should show such an attitude, that one of their number could say "Yet you are prepared to hover round it and do nothing," should surely not be allowed to pass unquestioned! It appears that Mr McCready is right ' —it is the money interests we're up against; but is that any legitimate reason for not even trying to fight it? Or are there other reasons? Are members of the Board themselves too involved in the liquor trade to feel free to act against, it? I do not know; I ask the. question as a natural reaction to the discussion and the attitude of the members, themselves. Why should the chairman talk of the control of T.B. if an obvious cause is to be ignored? We do well- to remember that we notonly have deadly enemies in. Germany and Japan but th,at we also have a strong and unscrupulous enemy right in our very midst. Our Hospital Board has been brought face, to face with this enemy through Mr McCready. lis the Maori race to be saved from one of the results of alcoholism, or is our Board prepared to sacrifice them to the ever-eon-suming booze trade? . That not only our Maori race is- concerned read these words from the French statesman M. Joseph Reinagh: "Without alcohol the rural population of. France would be practically untouched by tuberculosis. As it is aicoholism is destroying the. peasantry of the healthier and most beautiful regions by introducing tuberculosis." And that Mr McCready was right in calling alcohol a poison, read what the American Medical Association saj T s about it: "Alcohol is a poison, inherently absolutely essentially; in a drop or in a gill, in- a pint or in a gallon in all quantiand in every quantity it is a poison. Plainly, the quantity cannot alter its chemical constitution. Yours etc. "DUTY FIRST."