Visions should be passed and become part of the laws of this colony. If medical registration is needed, if the medical profession in this colony needs in any way to be looked after, it is that portion of the profession which deals with the Chinese and the other poorer members of the community. They are ignorant and incompetent to judge who is or is not a fully qualified medical man, and if any assistance is needed by this community it is not by that section for whom this legislation is intended. And I submit again, with some confidence, that the provision contained in the 13th clause of this Ordinance, which requires a medical or surgical practitioner coming here from any foreign country, from Germany or America, to submit not merely the question of his identity, and the question of whether he does or does not hold a certificate or diploma from his own country, but to submit to the consideration of the board whether that diploma was granted after a sufficient course of study and examination, and on sufficient grounds, is, I submit, totally uncalled for in a community like this. Here is Dr. Fisher in this colony, with a certificate of having passed proper examinations and an authority to practice in the State of California and an honorary degree of doctor of medicine from the College of Fort Wayne, Indiana, practising here with considerable credit and éclat, and by this Bill he is either stigmatised as a man practising without proper qualifications or is asked to put forth his qualifications before a medical board, the fact being he will not appear before a board of his personal enemies. Although he is allowed to practise, and practise without a penalty, he is placed under serious disqualifications which must indirectly, if not directly, affect him. I submit therefore to this honourable Council that I have sufficiently made out that this Bill, if it passes in its present form, will inflict grave injury to the private and individual privileges and rights of Dr. Fisher, on whose behalf I appear; and I submit also have shown the Council some reason for believing no general interests are to be served by this Ordinance, or no general interests of such magnitude as will justify the Council in interfering with the rights of Dr. Fisher or any other member of the profession who may not, for one reason or another, be willing to submit his qualifications to the board to be constituted under the Ordinance. And this honourable Council will probably remember that although Dr. Fisher appears personally by me to oppose this Bill there are other medical men in the colony not qualified under English law or any colonial law whom this may possibly injuriously affect. I do not of course know their qualifications, but I submit for your consideration whether it is right and wise to call upon medical men properly certified with a diploma obtained under the laws of their own country to submit the grounds on which that qualification has been granted them to any such board as can be constituted here, such board being composed of actual practitioners personally interested in keeping out all opposition. I thank Your Excellency and this Council for your patience in hearing me. I regret the short time within which I have been instructed has not allowed one to deal more fully or effectively with the case, but I submit it with the utmost confidence to your consideration, and ask you on public and general grounds to throw out this Ordinance as it stands.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL—It will probably be more convenient to the Council to allow some little time in which to consider what has been urged on behalf of Dr. Fisher, and therefore I propose, instead of the motion I before made, that the Council go into Committee on the Bill this day week.
Carried.
Mr. FRANCIS—May I crave permission to say one word more, and that is to ask whether this Bill does not come under another clause in the Standing Orders and whether before being committed it should not be published three times in the Government Gazette.
The CHIEF JUSTICE—I submit for the consideration of your Excellency that is a matter for the decision of this Council entirely.
Mr. Francis—If your Excellency so decides.
His EXCELLENCY—Yes.
Page 589