14
17
to the Medical fee the Acting Governor
does not concur. He thinks the
matter should be left to ordinary professional competition. I must express my dissent from this doctrine.
The medical officer
is called in to
discharge a duty which the Government owed
to its subjects - that,
namely, of protecting them on
long voyage against the risk of infectious disease. The question
is not how this duty may be performed
cheaply,
but how it may
be most
efficiently performed. On this
principle the Imperial Passengers
Act fixes the amount
of fee to be
paid to the medical inspectors of
immigrant ships in their Country.
In
like manner the Hongkong Legislature
should fix the amount of
fee to be paid to Medical
inspectors here -
whether the amount proposed $25.
per 100.
immigrants be too high
or not
is for the Local Authorities to decide.
But real economy
as well as humanity
demand that the fee should
be sufficiently
liberal to secure
the services of competent and respectable Medical men.
11.
In confirmation of the
view taken by the Committee that the
epidemic on board the "Tricolor" was caused
by a latent
disease carried on board
by the
immigrants,
the Acting Governor encloses a letter from the Harbour Master stating
that a ship recently arrived from Hakili-