THAT Great Britain is not a popular member of the community of European nations is all too patent. The Sanitary Conference sitting at Rome has just afforded conclusive proof on this point. The non-English, delegates have shown themselves to be divided toto coelo from the representatives of Britain and of India and from common sense. They have sought to place the navigation of the Suez Canal at the mercy of any erratic medical official, and to hamper our trade by restrictions absurd in theory and unbearable in practice.
As a matter of fact, the cholera scares is so severely dominant in Europe as to deprive men ordinarily shrewd of their wits, though in the decision of the Sanitary Commission is also to be plainly read a determination to meddle where possible with our commerce. The proposals of Dr. Brouardel, which have been accepted, are that all steamships hailing from infected ports beyond the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb shall be subjected to medical inspection in the Bed Sea, and that the opinion of the health officer coming from the shore shall be decisive as to the existence of cholera or cholera symptoms on board. When Sir Joseph Fayrer suggested that each troopship, postal steamer, or so on should furnish full information at Suez as to the precise state of health of everybody on board, Dr. Koch bad the impudence to observe that the British officer on board the ship might not report the truth. As a matter of fact, knowing the animus of the French and other nations towards ourselves, it would be folly of the most suicidal kind to allow our vessels to be stopped in what is an arm of the sea by some official whose chances of promotion and distinction depended on his making himself obnoxious to Englishmen. Moreover, the English Government, rightly holding that the imposition of quarantine is generally useless, objects especially to it in the Red Sea. The disease, whatever it may be, that is brought from Eastern harbours is not likely to be mitigated by an enforced delay; in the climate of Suez. Dr. Thorne quoted a case in point. The Crocodile troopship was coming from India with 2,000 men on board, when cholera broke out among them. During the voyage there were nine cases and six deaths, but the disease had vanished before the vessel reached England. If the Crocodile had fallen in the way of a zealous doctor armed with international authority, and suffering from an acute attack of Anglophobia, she would have been delayed at Suez, her men sent into lazaretto, and our brave soldiers "would probably have perished in hundreds. The loss of life is not the only thing to be considered, for needless hindrances of this kind to their vessels would involve English shipowners in untold expense. It is altogether an unpleasant subject, this Sanitary Commission; for it reveals the hostility felt towards us by the French and these who act with them. Their one aim and object is to thwart and injure English policy and English enterprise. Any excuse will do. If it is cholera and quarantine regulations to-day, it will be something else to-morrow. It is an agreeable-change to turn to the efforts made by an accomplished scientist in Spain to deal with the malady which is so tremendous a bugbear to the Mediterranean nations.
Advertiser, June 4, 1885
The First Lady Candidate For Parliament
Railway Accidents
Table of Contents
Miracles of healing - Christian Miracles or Healing
History of Russia: Christian Versus Barbarian
History of Japan: Early Christian Martyrs
The Jesus of History
The Assyrian Origin of Devil Worshippers
The Christ Of Dogma
The early history of Constantinople
