450 
THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
defects and imperfections we are only too well aware, and we shall, at all times, 
be found ready to give our careful attention to any suggestions for its improve- 
ment with which we may be favoured by our readers. But however far short 
it may fall of the high ideal with which we set out, we have every reason to 
believe that it has not been without a powerful influence on the growth of 
that federal spirit to which much of the success of the recent Conference may 
be attributed, and that in many other ways a great deal of good has accrued 
from the information published in its pages. Relying upon the practical 
sympathy of pharmacists throughout the southern hemisphere, we have every 
confidence that in the coming year we shall be enabled to render the Journal 
of still greater value to its readers, each and all of whom will, we sincerely 
trust, enjoy 
A Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. 
PHARMACY Y. CO-OPERATIVE STORES. 
As will be seen from the special report published elsewhere in this issue, the 
Full Court has practically reversed the decision of the District Court in the case 
of Shillinglaw v. the Equitable Co-operative Society, and Victorian pharmacists 
can now, thanks to the thoughtful prevision and energetic action of their 
Pharmacy Board, congratulate themselves on the possession of an Act under which 
they may rely with confidence for protection against the unfair and mischievous 
competition of those commercial octopi of modern times — the co-operative stores. 
In face of the clear enunciation of the law given in the present instance, there 
is, we think, but little likelihood of any further attempt on the part of these 
associations to encroach on the privileges with which registered chemists have, 
for the public good, been invested by the Legislature. Indirectly we have, indeed, 
to thank the trading concern in question for affording us one of the most satisfactory 
test cases that could be desired to elucidate the law on the point involved. So 
ingenious, indeed, was the scheme adopted to evade — or, shall we say, to fulfil — 
the law that we can almost forgive the Solons who first decided on its merits 
for their inability to see through it, from a legal point of view, although as 
business men they might have been expected to give a decision more in accordance 
with the common sense of everyday life. “The medicine was duly dispensed,” 
said they, “by a duly qualified chemist, and that he complied with the Act in 
every way, and that the public were duly protected. Although he chose to 
dispense at the offices of the company , we do not think the company were to he 
held responsible .” It is refreshing to find among those whose magisterial duties 
bring them in contact with all phases and varieties of human character, gentlemen 
so unsophisticated as to believe that Mr. G-oold occupied a position while 
dispensing at the offices of the company as independent as if he were performing 
this function in an open shop of his own, or that the actual business control of 
the department was not as truly under the non- professional management of the 
society as in the case of the ironmongery and grocery departments, with which 
it appears to have been in close juxtaposition. “ And what if this were the 
case?” may be asked by the justices in reply. “So long as the dispensing 
is done by a properly qualified chemist, are not the public just as well protected 
in purchasing their drugs at a store as if they obtained them from the same 
dispenser at his own premises ?” Limiting the argument to the case of the 
Equitable Store, so far as our knowledge of it goes, it would perhaps be 
difficult to answer this question in the negative. No doubt, in view of 
the proceedings looming in the distance, every precaution was taken to 
secure accurate dispensing and drugs of the best quality. But, taking 
