Patent Medicines ' Lord Horder is to be congratulated on
raising the question of patent medicines in the House of Lords this week. Legis- lation on this subject has long been called for, but the Government seems to adopt the curious position that this country is behind other countries in legislating against admitted abuses but that it is beyond its capacity to legislate effectively. Indeed, Lord Gage for the Government showed little of that sympathy for, and understanding of, the poor and the lower middle class, who are the chief patent medicine addicts, whicfi inspired Lord Horder's speech. The Govern- ment appears to believe that if people are foolish enough to be taken in by quack medicines, so much the worse for them, as democracy forbids interference with their liberty to- be deceived. The fact is that in many cases the claims made for patent medicines are so exaggerated as to amount to a fraud on the public ; and liberty to be defrauded is not one of the principles of democracy. The Govern- ment did indeed -go so far as to promise that, if necessary, warnings against the misuse of drugs should be incor- porated into the National Fitness Movement ; in doing so it showed a striking failure to comprehend the true scale and nature of the evil which Lord Horder so energetically attacked.
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