002 
THE PROPOSED PHARMACY BILL. 
to the highest honours any one who applies for them, thus creating a want 
of confidence it will take years to overcome. 
The question, where is the necessity for future legislation at present; why 
throw away what has been already attained, to satisfy a few clamorous out¬ 
siders ? And money,—or the hardship to those who have spent money to 
educate themselves. 
Before assailing the injustice of others, would it not have been fairer for , 
your correspondent to have assured himself that he was not committing 
the same delinquency? He calls us a few clamorous outsiders w'ho have 
been guilty of frustrating ail the efforts made by the Society to elevate the 
status of the trade. He says, “We cannot come into contact with Phar¬ 
maceutical Chemists without producing dire consequences, and they are 
truly shocking to read; the eflect on the public mind, it is asserted, cannot 
fail to be most prejudicial, and a want of confidence will be created which it 
will take years to overcome,” etc. I believe Mr. Mills has not followed very 
attentively the late march of events ; w’e certainly are not few in number, 
for we represent the larger proportion of chemists and druggists. Has 
Mr. Mills read any report of the Manchester meeting,—of the meeting of the 
trade at the Loudon Coffee House,—and lastly, of our Conference of the i9th 
of February, at Bloomsbury Square? If he had, or had he read his own 
Journal of Januarjq he wmuld have seen the proposition he so much objects 
to, issued b}'’ the authority of tne Pharmaceutical Council as a basis for 
consideration ; and it would have been more just to state objections at once, 
than after three months’ delay, and when the Bill is printed, to object to 
its clauses. We are not conscious that we have impressed the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Council by clamour; we had not intended to do so, and those who 
have any personal knowledge of our proceedings will smile at this jaunty w^ay 
of calling us names. Mr. Ince aptly described our bearing at the Conference 
as respectful and manly, and he w^as present on the occasion. Mr. Mills 
can take my word, if it will save him any time, that in all sections of the 
trade there is a general feeling of mutual friendship and esteem, the friend¬ 
ship of fellow-tradesmen, and esteem for the high position the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society holds. INeither at the public meeting at the London Coffee 
House, nor on any subsequent occasion, either in public or in the Press, has 
one unbrotherly word been used by a member of our trade towards the Phar¬ 
maceutical Society ; the words of strife are aimed at us, and we feel the in¬ 
justice of the assertion that we “ have tried to frustrate all efforts to raise the 
status of the trade,” and such is our debased condition that we—whose 
existence depends at this present moment on public confidence—cannot but 
“ create a want of confidence in the public mind it will take years to overcome.” 
When we speak of justice to the examined members, to founders, and to the 
public, we must see Justice as she is, with scales poised to weigh before de¬ 
ciding, and with eyes bandaged to keep out of view purely personal interests. 
Let us examine the weights for either side of the scale. Here are 4000 
cheniists and druggists, outsiders, to be legislated for. How are their 
rights to be reconciled with the fact of a society not their own, having Par¬ 
liamentary powers to register the trade, to admit all future members, to act 
as public prosecutors, etc. ? Certainly not by treating tw^o-thirds of the 
tradn as aliens to a society in favour of which they break up their own 
own organization. 
A practical proof that legislation is needed, is the continuous Parliamen¬ 
tary efforts of one or both sections of the trade during the last ten years. 
Four years' separate action of the United and Pharmaceutical Societies has 
proved how futile is the attempt to obtain any Pharmacy Act that is not 
acceptable to the great majority of chemists and druggists. It is late indeed 
