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78

26 January, 1920.]

COLONIAL MEDICAL SERVICES COMMITTEE.

Lieut.-Colonel W. T. PROUT, C.M.G.

would be making an exchange among the upper ranks, but not among the junior ranks. That is just a suggestion; how does it strike you?-I think that is practically what happens now.

2518. On a very small scale; but if it were a recognised part of the machinery of the Colonial Service, known to everybody and extended more widely than it is now, do you think that would be a good thing, or not?-Yes; I think that exchanges among the administrative posts are not disadvanta- geous, but I do not know that it should be extended. I do not quite see how it can be extended much more than it it. In Colonies like the West Indies, for example, there are very few purely administrative posts; there are perhaps two or three.

2519. Quite so, but I meant an officer who reached a standing in the West Indian Service should be eligible for transfer, perhaps, to China, or something of that sort, as an administrative officer?—Yes; I do not see any objection to that. As I say, it is done, I think.

2520. We have heard a good deal of stress put upon the different conditions, and the difficulty of learning the local conditions, and that has been used as an argument for retaining an officer for a certain time in a certain Colony, or in a certain station. Is there not another side to that; by, bringing new blood into a place, bringing new ideas, a different way of looking at a thing, and experience in auother Colony, it might be very useful, for the one to which he was transferred P-Yes, I think so, provided the man is young.

2521. You think after a certain age, it is not desirable?--I think one is less adaptable perhaps as one gets older.

2522. He gets more experience ?--Yea.

2523. Chairman: You have no personal experience of East Africa ?-No; that is the one bit of Africa that I have missed; I have been all round,

2524. What you have said of East Africa is simply what you have gathered from hearsay ?-I am con- stantly seeing people from there.

2625. In Sierra Leone, did your officers learn any of the native languages -Very rarely; it was almost hopeless; there are half a dozen languages dotted about the Hinterland.

2526. In other Colonies they do, even in West Africa?-Yen, they do. For example, Hausa is a language which would take you a long way, but to know all the languages behind Sierra Leone would not take you any distance.

2527. Do you not think it a great advantage to a medical officer that he can speak the language of the patient? Undoubtedly. I learned a little Hausa on

[Continued.

the Gold Coast in my early days, then I was moved I found it very useful.

2528. That is the disadvantage of moving a young officer very much? Yes. There is a lingua-france, pigeon-English, in Sierra Leone which will take you a long way, but in one or two places the great diffi. culty is the multiplicity of the languages. On the Gold Coast you have big tracts of country with more or less similar languages.

2520. Where there is a language which carries you a long way in a Colony, you think it would be of great advantage for medical officer to learn itP-Most certainly I do.

2530. Had you any research laboratory in Sierra Leone -Not when I was there, except my own little

one.

2531. Do you think enough is done in the way of research in the West African Colonies P-No; I think it ought to be extended in every possible way.

2532. And you would pay the head of the research. laboratory a high salary?-I should made the induce- ment sufficiently great to make men willing to take it up.

2533. Put him on an incremental salary, so that he could rise?-So that he would not feel he was suffer- ing a loss by sticking to research.

2534. Sir Humphry Rolleston: I would rather like to return to one question, and that is the question of the want of utility of a refresher course to a man who is about to take up an administrative post. I would like to suggest that it would make him a very much better administrative officer, one of whose duties would be to look after the young men who have to carry out that kind of work?-I do not think it would make very much difference if he had been doing professional work all the time.

2535. Would he not be better able to judge of their work? It would not be a disadvantage.

2536. No; I mean it is an advantage?-I do not know; well, any additional knowledge is, of course, an advantage to any human being.

2537. Mr. Fiddian: To carry it a little further: Would you make a man's promotion dependent upon his having taken such a refresher course, in view of cases we have had recently P-Not for purely adminis trative appointments.

2538. You do not think it would help him?--I would not say that I would not like to put it in that hard and fast way. I should like to add that

the higher the professional knowledge of an adminis trative officer is, the better it is, but it does not necessarily follow that a man with high professional knowledge makes good administrative officer. Chairman: Thank you.

(The Witness withdrew.)

#

(Adjourned till Monday nert, the 2nd February, 1920, at 3 p.m.)

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

79

2 February, 1920.]

818 JOHN ROSE BRADFORD, K.C.M.G.

[Continued.

TENTH DAY.

Monday, 2nd February, 1920.

PRESENT:

SIR WALTER EGERTON, K.C.M.G. (Chairman),

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BIR HARRY VERNEY, Bart.,

D.8.0.

Ευματον REAR-ADMIRAL SIR HUMPHRY D.

ROLLESTON, K.C.B., M.D., F.R.C.P. MAJOR-GENERAL SIR W. B. LEISHMAN, K.C.M.G., C.B., M.B., F.R.C.P., F.R.8., K.H.P., A.M.8.

KINGSTON

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SIR JAMES

FOWLER, K.C.V.O., C.M.G., M.D., F.R.C.P., R.A.M.C. (T.).

MR. T. HOOD, C.M.G., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. MR. A. FIDDIAN.

Mr. J. E. W. FLOOD (Secretary).

Sir JOHN Rose BLADFORD, K.C.M.G., called in and examined,

2539. Chairman: Have you had any Colonial ex- perience? No, sir.

2540. No tropical experience?—No, sir. 2541. One of the things we are enquiring into is, how to maintain and improve the flow of candidates into the Colonial Medical Service. Have you any opinions as to what we should do to socure candi- dates ?-Well, air, of course, I can only speak from a general point of view; I can speak on it, of course, as a teacher of medicine in a London Medical School for something like 30 years, and I have some ex- perience of Colonial candidates, inasmuch as I am the Senior Medical Adviser to the Colonial Office, but I have no actual first-hand tropical experience, so that anything that I have to say must be more or leas on general lines.

2542. Yes, but you have great experience of young medical men?-Yes, I have a certain experience of young men.

2543. And what would be necessary to attract them to undertake Colonial service P-I think, fundamentally, there are two things. I should think that, first of all, there must be, I was going to say,* a better status of the Colonial Medical Service, and in the second place there must be probably greater emoluments. I should think those are the two fundamental things.

2544. Hitherto Colonial medical men have been re- cruited at the age of 25 or over. It has been sug- gested that we should select them sooner, as soon a they have passed their degrees, and then keep them in England for a time studying tropical medicine, and holding an appointment as house surgeon, perhaps, before they go out. Do you think it would be easier to select them at an earlier age?--I think, if I might say so, my experience on the Army Medi- cal Advisory Board might be of some use to the Com- mittee, from that point of view. Of course, as you know, probably, there was, in years gone by, con- siderable dissatisfaction amongst civilians as regards the prospects offered in the Army Medical Service, and a number of reforms were instituted. One of the most important reforms was of the nature of what you are alluding to, namely, that a man, after he had passed the examination and entered the service, was seconded and was allowed to hold a resident appoint- ment, and I think that that was one-it was not the

D.Sc.,

only one, but it was one of the things which led to a very considerable improvement in the kind of candidates that entered the Army.

2545. The examination was held earlier, and then after passing?-No, 1 do not think the examination was held earlier, but after the examination the man was seconded and was allowed to hold a resident ap pointmnt, a six months' appointment.

2546. And during that period of seconding was he given any retaining fee or salary?--He got his full pay.

2547. He got his full pay, and then if he took a house aurgeoncy he got paid there too?-Most of these house surgeoncies are not paid. It was not a financial question, it was a professional status question; it gave him opportunities of acquiring a better posi- tion in his profession. It was not a financial ques. tion except in so far as the fact that drawing his pay enabled him to hold the appointment.

2548. Can you say for how long?-Six months. The candidates who enter the Colonial Medical Ser- vice at the present time are considerably older than 25, sometimes.

2549. Very often, because the flow has not been sufficient to maintain the service properly?-No.

2550. You say that the status of the Colonial Medi- cal Service requires improvement; in what way; I thought it was well regarded?-Well, speaking as a teacher of a Medical School, I should not have said that the status ranked very high.

2551. In what way?-I should have said it occu- pied a position somewhat similar to that occupied by the Services a considerable number of years ago; I mean, the boat men did not go in at that time. Well, of course, whenever that kind of thing arises it is exceedingly difficult to say exactly what the cause is, There are a great number of causes; it is not any one single thing. Pay is one thing, the prospects of ad- vancement is another thing, the way in which the medical officers are treated-I am not talking now of the Colonial Service, you understand, I am talk- ing of all Government Services generally, the Army, the Navy, the Indian Medical-the way in which the medical officers are treated by the executive officers; their relative status to them--I do not mean their personal treatment-I mean their relative status, whether it is an inferior one or an equal one, and questions of that kind.