336 STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION xm 



The scheme in fact involved a perpetual 

 endowment of the "black sheep," calculated on 

 the maximum of their ill-gained profits. 1 I 

 confess that I found myself unable to assent to 

 a plan .which, in addition to the rewarding the 

 evil doers, proposed to take away the privileges 

 of a number of examining bodies which confessedly 

 were doing their duty well, for the sake of getting 

 rid of a few who had failed. It was too much 

 like the Chinaman's device of burning down his 

 house to obtain a poor dish of roast pig uncertain 

 whether in the end he might not find a mere 

 mass of cinders. What we do know is that the 

 great majority of the existing licensing bodies 

 have marvellously improved in the course of the 

 last twenty years, and are improving. What we 

 do not know is that the complicated scheme of 

 the divisional boards will ever be got to work at 

 all. 



My own belief is that every necessary reform 

 may be effected, without any interference with 

 vested interests, without any unjust interference . 

 with the prestige of institutions which have been, 



1 The fees to be paid by candidates for admission to the ex- 

 aminations of the Divisional Board should be of such an amount 

 as will be sufficient to cover the cost of the examinations and 

 the other expenses of the Divisional Board, and also to provide 

 the sum required to compensate the medical authorities, or such 

 of them as may be entitled to compensation, for any pecuniary 

 losses they may hereafter sustain by reason of the abolition of their 

 piivilege of conferring a licence to practise. Report 50, p. xii. 



