282
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
CEPLEC.O.882/11
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON]
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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With apologies for having written at such which I naturally should not have adopted had
SIR,
(No. Conf. 67/24.)
I
length on this subject—a course been permitted to give evidence. I have, &c.,
Enclosure 2 in No. 11.
C. J. FERGUSon Davie,
Singapore.
Colonial Secretary's Office, Singapore, 1st April, 1924.
I AM directed to inform you that certain objections have been taken to the constitution and procedure of the Venereal Diseases Committee of which you were a member. The objections made are briefly as follows:-
(a) The composition of the Committee is objected to on the grounds that three of its members were known to be strongly in favour of Regulation and that there was no one on the Committee who could represent the opposite point of view. The witnesses therefore could not be examined from different points of view, and this is said to detract greatly from the value of the Report.
(b) It is stated that it is usual for a Committee on public matters to obtain by advertisement or otherwise all knowledge on the subject which is available, but that the Venereal Diseases Committee neither advertised nor sent circulars to members of the medical profession.
(c) It is stated that the Committee's method of obtaining evidence was unfair. The fact that the medical profession was not circularized is said to have resulted in certain recommendations being put forward as being in accordance with the unanimous feeling of the witnesses. Doctors who were opposed to the scheme proposed by the Committee were, it is said, not asked to give evidence. Among witnesses mentioned as not called were (i) Dr. Connolly, President of the Penang branch of the National Society for Prevention of Venereal Disease, (ii) Mrs. Ferguson-Davie, (iii) Dr. Tertius Clark, Health Officer, Kedah, who is said to have been a member of a Committee in the Federated Malay States which, about ten years ago, opposed a scheme for reintroducing the main provisions of the Contagious Diseases Ordinances, (iv) The Bishop of Singapore, who expressed a desire to give evidence but was not allowed to do so on the ground that he was not a doctor-a distinction not observed by the various Commissions on Venereal Diseases in England. In the case of one doctor, who was called to give evidence, it is alleged that the Committee at once stopped asking him questions when it found that he was opposed to regulation.
(d) The fact that two members of the Committee gave evidence in person is said to be contrary to the procedure usually followed by Committees of this kind.
(e) The fact that the evidence was not published is said to make a full criticism of the Report impossible. The Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases in England published the full evidence.
(f) It is stated that the Committee completely ignored the following three very important ways of dealing with Venereal Diseases, which are said to have been tried at various times and places with considerable effect.
(1) Compulsory notification of all cases, male and female, with compulsory treatment of all, and penalties both for men and women who communi- cate the disease to others.
(2) The inauguration of a large number of free clinics helped by Government grants, but not confined in their management to Government doctors.
(3) The removal as far as possible of the bad houses from the population and at the same time the providing of other sources of occupation and amusement.
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2. It is important that the Government should be in a position to reply to this criticism, and I am to suggest that you and the other members of the Com- mittee, who are still in Singapore, should arrange to meet and forward to Govern- ment your comments on the various points which have been raised. I have, &c.,
G. HEMMANT,
Acting Colonial Secretary, Straits Settlements.
The Honourable Sir D. J. Galloway, Singapore. Dr. L. S. O'May, Singapore.
Dr. G. A. Finlayson,
c/o Principal Civil Medical Officer, Straits Settlements, Singapore. Dr. P. S. Hunter, Municipality, Singapore.
Dr. M. J. Rattray, Singapore.
SIR,
(Confidential 67/24.)
Enclosure 3 in No. 11.
Municipal Health Office, Singapore, 22nd April, 1924. THE above numbered communication has been under consideration by the undersigned and, although we are firmly of opinion that every point raised can be fully answered by referring the questioner to the terms of reference, we, in order to avoid any possible misconception, submit a detailed rejoinder arranged, äs far
as the questions admit, in order similar to that of your communication.
(a) We do not think we are called on to discuss the personnel of the Committee, but we would direct attention to the fact that it was a joint Committee on which the three great public bodies, Government, the Municipal Commissioners and the Straits Settlements Association, had each their representative.
We are unaware on what authority the statement is made that "three of its members were known to be strongly in favour of regulation." Further, we resent the imputation implied in this assertion. We would remind you that the Com- mittee was an expert Committee and investigated the subject solely from a medical aspect.
(b) We repudiate at once the suggested postulate that the Committee ought to have advertised for or circularized medical men in Singapore to come forward and course was not only give evidence. With a select expert Committee such a unnecessary but would have fulfilled its purpose less satisfactorily than that which was adopted by the Committee. That is set out in the Minutes of the two pre- liminary meetings, but, as it seems to have been misread, we, at the risk of incurring a charge of prolixity, repeat it here. Every medical man in Singapore, having whether a home or local qualification, was known to the Committee, and it selected It attached those whom it believed to have knowledge of a special nature. particular value to the men from the local College of Medicine because, being mainly Asiatics, they had greater opportunities of acquiring a first-hand knowledge of the conditions in the lower classes who form the crux of the question. As two of the members of the Committee were lecturers in the College of Medicine the personal communication or interview was obviously the course to adopt with their old students.
The special nature of the knowledge which the Committee insisted should be possessed by all witnesses was, primarily, that it should be first-hand information collected in actual practice, having special regard to the races among whom it was acquired, and the witnesses selected were those who, in the estimation of the Com- mittee, were best qualified to supply that information.
Any attempt to read into this action an ulterior meaning we stigmatize as unmerited, unworthy and untrue.
To remove, or at least to lessen, the rooted professional objection to discussing. even indirectly, the affairs of their patients, it was resolved at the second pre- liminary meeting that all evidence given by witnesses should be considered confidential. This pledge cannot be broken. We are convinced that the evidence given confidentially was given more freely and in more detail and was valuable than if it had been to be published.
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(c) We have already dealt with the allegations in the first paragraph of this section, but we desire to add that the opinions of the various witnesses were known
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