The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1912. THE INSURANCE BILL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 194, 14 February 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1912. THE INSURANCE BILL.

Doctors and the employers of domestic servants in the Old Country are the two classes who are most violently opposed to the Insurance Bill, a replica of which is steadily at work in Germany, much to the satisfaction of doctors, servants, employers and the general public. There seems to be no doubt that the violent antagonism to the Insurance Bill is that it upsets, or will upset, some oldfashioned prejudices and interferes to some extent with ancient privileges. It is already promised that if every doctor in the United Kingdom refuses to work under the Insurance scheme the achsaie will still proceed. In Germany the whole scheme is worked by the State, and the doctors employed are State servants. But Britain is very careful about these matters, and the Cabinet no doubt believed it might do an injury to some doctors by creating a State Medical Department, and therefore asked doctors in private practice to enrol. They emitted extremely loud protests. Doctors disagreed very violently in the matter, and although it was at first stated that a working arrangement had been arrived at, subsequently the medical men of Britain repudiated the action of their Association by an overwhelming majority. The only principle that is at stake is the medical man's right to charge as much as his Association will allow him to charge. It is a matter of cash, first and last. The doctors of Britain have as good a right to fight for their crust j as the docker has, and it has been lately ascertained that the average income of British physicians is £3OO a year. This means that thousands of trained doctors make much less, and also that those at the top of the tree make yearly fortunes. There are doctors in the Old Country who charge a common fee of sixpence. A famous medical character got married | the other day. Thousands of people of the working class attended the "Threepenny doctor's wedding." The Insurance Act is distinctly not antagonistic to medical Dion, for it provides ,a sum of <£4,500.000 to be paid to them, and will ensure an income of £:;00 a year for the 1.j.000 medical men who will be sufficient for tlie requirements of the Act. It is estimated that there are about thirty thousand doctors in Britain, and it is n!«o seriously believed thai the [usuninee Bill is a bles'-iii? to a lar;tf> number of them in a profession where (here is such keen competition, and which, of course, lias jt= mediocrities the same as every other profession and mlliiijt. The overseas dominions cannot absorb ail the mediocrities., and they certainly cannot expect to get the pick of the yearly bunches of young medicos, so that when the medical men get oyer their pique and find out that the Insur-

ance Bill, although a monster, has golden wings they will settle down to the new order of things. In fact, it is being widely said at Home that it will be but a short time befoTe the authorities have legions of doctors banging at the doors of the State asking to be registered under the Act. Then, again, the doctors may take the humanitarian view that this great scheme is worthy of the work the best men can put into it. It is a scheme that fights pauperism, disease, starvation and death. It is a fight for the people, for a better Britain, a cleaner, healthier race. 1 Class prejudice, class greed, class selfishness may be brushed aside for the common good, and the most conservative Qf professions may yet unbend to do the bidding of the State.