Editorial published in the NZMJ 1914 July issueAT the risk of being thought tedious, we revert to this subject, for at no time more than at present is cohesion required in the medical profession in Now Zealand. Many questions affecting doctors are reaching the acute, stage—for example, medical registration, and our relations with Friendly Societies, and a proposed system of State aid for sickness and invalidity.There is little fear that the medical profession will ever become, deeply imbued with the aggressive principles of trade unionism, but if we are to maintain our status, we must adhere to one principle of unionism, and that its essence, namely, that individuals must combine, arid sink all minor differences of opinion, for the good of our class.In any conceivable state of society there will always be room for kindness and benevolence on the part of the doctor, so that we can never become entirely commercial in our attitude to the public. Among ourselves competition is becoming more keen, and the cost of living is rapidly and steadily increasing; but we believe that, on the whole, medical fees have not increased, but have rather declined.The competition of public hospitals is undoubtedly a menace to legitimate private practice. The hospitals arc being increasingly taken advantage of—oh, excellent and pregnant phrase!—not, as we are sometimes told, because the wily public has increased confidence in the skill of the hospital staffs, but really because the wily public is fond of getting something cheap.Again, is the contract payment for lodge work to be like the laws of the Modes and Persians which altereth not, or is it to be correlated with the cost of living, and the world-wide tendency to increase wages in every field of industry? It is obvious that we must act on the advice of George Washington, who said to his friends: \"Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or we shall hang separately\"The organisation of the British Medical Association in New Zealand has recently been vastly improved, but requires further improvement before, if it should be necessary, we may fight to win. We suffer now from having gone into fights with fainthearted recruits and discomfited allies, and require still both discipline and enthusiasm. Our legal friends are in a position to resist pressure from the State and the community, and can control their own affairs; but lawyers, of course, are all officers of the Supreme Court, and are well represented in the Cabinet and in Parliament. They could make themselves heard if it were proposed to establish a free law bureau in connection with, for instance, the Public Trust Office.If the state of the primary industries in New Zealand, and of trade generally, is in the highly satisfactory condition shown in Government statistics, we shall not err on the side of harshness if we, as a profession, cease to countenance further schemes of medical charity, and conserve our energies to maintain our profession in a well-paid and contented condition, thereby adding largely to the public weal.

Editorial published in the NZMJ 1914 July issueAT the risk of being thought tedious, we revert to this subject, for at no time more than at present is cohesion required in the medical profession in Now Zealand. Many questions affecting doctors are reaching the acute, stage—for example, medical registration, and our relations with Friendly Societies, and a proposed system of State aid for sickness and invalidity.There is little fear that the medical profession will ever become, deeply imbued with the aggressive principles of trade unionism, but if we are to maintain our status, we must adhere to one principle of unionism, and that its essence, namely, that individuals must combine, arid sink all minor differences of opinion, for the good of our class.In any conceivable state of society there will always be room for kindness and benevolence on the part of the doctor, so that we can never become entirely commercial in our attitude to the public. Among ourselves competition is becoming more keen, and the cost of living is rapidly and steadily increasing; but we believe that, on the whole, medical fees have not increased, but have rather declined.The competition of public hospitals is undoubtedly a menace to legitimate private practice. The hospitals arc being increasingly taken advantage of—oh, excellent and pregnant phrase!—not, as we are sometimes told, because the wily public has increased confidence in the skill of the hospital staffs, but really because the wily public is fond of getting something cheap.Again, is the contract payment for lodge work to be like the laws of the Modes and Persians which altereth not, or is it to be correlated with the cost of living, and the world-wide tendency to increase wages in every field of industry? It is obvious that we must act on the advice of George Washington, who said to his friends: \"Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or we shall hang separately\"The organisation of the British Medical Association in New Zealand has recently been vastly improved, but requires further improvement before, if it should be necessary, we may fight to win. We suffer now from having gone into fights with fainthearted recruits and discomfited allies, and require still both discipline and enthusiasm. Our legal friends are in a position to resist pressure from the State and the community, and can control their own affairs; but lawyers, of course, are all officers of the Supreme Court, and are well represented in the Cabinet and in Parliament. They could make themselves heard if it were proposed to establish a free law bureau in connection with, for instance, the Public Trust Office.If the state of the primary industries in New Zealand, and of trade generally, is in the highly satisfactory condition shown in Government statistics, we shall not err on the side of harshness if we, as a profession, cease to countenance further schemes of medical charity, and conserve our energies to maintain our profession in a well-paid and contented condition, thereby adding largely to the public weal.