BRITISH MEDICAL CONGRESS

Hokitika Guardian, 20 November 1930, Page 7

BRITISH MEDICAL CONGRESS

AVINNI V EG OATHERTNG

DR,. E. O. HAYES RETURNS. AVELLINGTON, November 17. Two departures from the usual custom were made at the British .Medical Conference held at AVinnipeg in August, according to Dr E. C. Hayes of Christchurch, who returned by the Maunganui to-day. At the opening ceremony when the new president assumed office the wile of the incoming president, Airs Harvey Smith otf AVinnipeg, was presented with a badge of office by the outgoing president, Professor Burgess, of Liverpool. The British Medical Association dinner was also a departure inasmuch as ladies were present, Dr Hayes continued. At the dinner there was a toast to the ladies, to which Airs Harvey Smith responded in one otf the best speeches of the evening. 'Hie dinner was held in the Hudson Bay Companj s rooms, and there were between 1600 and 1700 guest delegates. It would he hard to find a hall elsewhere which would accommodate such a large gathering, BUTTER TARIFF. Dr Hayes, who left New Zealand last July and spent some time travelling in Canada and the United States, ex* pressed the opinion that the Canadian election was won on the propaganda of the “iniquity 1 * off Netv Zealand butter. “The Canadians are the greatest butter eaters in the world,’’ he said. “In the restaurants and dining ears on trains your plate is never allowed to be empty of butter. They force it on you. Canada used to he a butter exporting country but now it does not export a pound. Milk and cream are sent into the large cities for ice-cream manufacture which seems to be more profitable and to require less work than turning it into butter. The ordinary housewfe d< es not appreciate the restriction against New Zealand butter for it men is that she has to pay more for what she requires. The people who are making the profit out off the new tariff are the members of a ring of butter dealers who manipulate storage butter so as to get high prices.”

INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION. The United States on the whole was in rather a bad wfiy said Dr Hayes. Ford’s factory was working only three days a week and this could be taken as an index to the industrial situation. Factories in every other branch of industry were working on similar lines, and Ford’s three-day week was common to the majority of them. Los Angeles seemed to him to be the most prosperous place in America, and a city with every appearance of becoming the greatest in the world.He spoke for some time on the wonderful resources, natural and artifically created, which conspired to make Los Angeles a remarkable city. At present a huge hydro-electric scheme was going to provide Los Angeles with vast amounts of the cheapest electricity in the world, LIQUOR QUESTION, “In New York yon can ring up your bootlegger and order your whisky just as you would from your wine and spirit merchant Ijiere,” said Dr E. C. Hayes. Ordering in the normal way from a bootlegger as was done in New York was attended by the danger of being caught, but very few seemed to get into trouble in that way. In Chicago the situation was even freer. The policeman in Chicago went off his beat and had his beer in a speakeasy. Dr Hayes happened to he in Boston at the time when the annual reunion of the American Legions was held. Acorn! 75,000 members attended, and they held a procession which lasted from 10 o’clock in the morning until IQ tFclock at night, traversing and reversing the city’s streets. The day’s work resulted in 400 people being taken to hospital suffering from alcoholio poisoning. Four of them died, and thrre were a number of cases of blindness. Alcohol was sold openly in the squares in the presence and full view of tho police. The general opinion in the United States was that a stronger form of' beer would shortly be introduced, A number of the larger breweries, especially in Milwaukee, were installing; special plants for the purpose of manufacturing such a beverage. e