"PROFITEERING."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your remarks on "profiteering" you say the rise in the price of labour is'universal. May I make a correction? You should make one exception; that is in the work, of the medical profession. Of panel patients, those requiring least attention have been withdrawn into the Army; the remainder, containing a larger proportion of sick and ailing persons, are being attended at the same rate of insurance. A writer in this week's British Medical Journal points out "our notification fee was reduced from 23. Gd. to ls. as a war economy, thereby saving 423,0000 a year." He adds by way of contrast, and supporting your remarks, "Shortly afterwards the organized railwaymen received their second war bonus of £7,500,000."—I am, Sir, &c., [We agree. Not only have the doctors not been able, if desirous, which we doubt; to increase their fees, but, they have-been expected to do a vast deal of unpaid work. This they have done with splendid devotion, not troubling to engage in " the hidden treasure competition " invented by the War Office for V.A.D. Hospital 31.0.'8. Another curious point is worth noting. The less well-off and well-plaeed a doctor, the less he is entitled to in honours, rank, and emoluments. The G.P. works early and late for nothing. The consultant is paid a- fair wage; 'awl is—given- uniform and the rank of Colonel—an honour very rightly desired and respected in war time. And then people wonder that, as they say, we " allow things to appear in the Spectator that encourage the country doctors to think they have not been very handsomely treated by the authorities "I—ED. Spectator.]
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