CO-OPERATION IN PUBLIC SANITATION

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 107, 30 January 1935, Page 8

CO-OPERATION IN PUBLIC SANITATION

An amalgamation of interests for the more efficient pursuit of. a common objective was reported upon at the first annual meeting in Wellington yesterday of the recently combined New Zealand Branch of the Royal Sanitary Institute and tlie New Zealand Sanitary Inspectors’ Association. Satisfaction was expressed that the merger of the two bodies had been happily effected. “We are all members of the Public Health Service,” said the Director-General of Health, Dr. M. H. Watt, commenting with pleasure on the fact that so many representatives of the local bodies were present, “and we all wage a common war against disease.” Co-operation of this kind, which brings to a common focus, varying views, is in every way desirable, because in the general sifting of ideas and opinions it is possible to find a mean that is practicable as a community proposition. Scientific enthusiasm for ideals in sanitation is all to the good, but between what may be eminently desirable from the medical point of view and that which is possible with the means at hand there must always be a difference. On the principle that a small advance prepares the ground for further progress later, it is better that a compromise should be reached than that the differences should be regarded as insuperable. The executive of the new association is fully representative of scientific, architectural, engineering and administrative opinion, a sound basis for reaching practical results.