THE DOCTORS AND THE STATE
StR,—The Spectator numbers very many readers among the medical profession and most of us are surprised, one may say bewildered, at the attitude you have taken towards the profession concerning the issue of the White Paper. You seem to have adopted the attitude that we are fighing for our own interests against the interests of the public. From a political point of view your influence has been exerted on the side of Socialism, which is a. strange milieu in which to find The Spectator. That, however, is immaterial to the main issue. What we are fighting is an effort to regiment a profession which depends for its very life on individual responsibility. The question of finance has played and is playing a very minor part in the whole controversy. If you will study again the revised proposals, which after all are not a secret document but a step in negotiations, you will see that the question of remuneration is left to be settled by negotiation with the Minister and the profession based on information gathered by the " Spens Committee " (para. 42 a al.). You suggest that the public should have been informed of these suggestions. When is the public ever informed of the progress of negotiations preceding any Bill presented in Parliament? All these matters will be argued out fully when the actual Bill is presented in Parliament. It seems to many of us that your comments from the begin- ning have savoured of an unreasonable prejudice not to be expected from the usual principles of The Spectator, prejudice' which at times amounts to a suppressio veri. I cannot discontinue to read The Spectator as others of my colleagues have done, as I cannot do without it, but I would beg that you study the position .a little more carefully from the point of view of freedom not only for the medical profession but for
[The fundamental question is whether there is to be a comprehensive National Health Service or not. The principle has been approved by a predominantly Conservative House of Commons and it is certain that a predominantly Labour House of Commons would approve it still snore emphatically. If the doctors accept this all details are matters of argument—but the community must have the last word.—En., The Spectator.]
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