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The study aims to investigate the profitability and marketability efficiency scores and determinants of 899 listed manufacturers in six Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The study employs the bootstrap two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure profitability and marketability efficiencies of Southeast Asian manufacturers. The study uses the panel-data fractional regression model (FRM), which is an advantageous method that is suitable for the fractional response variables and applicable to time-differing heterogeneity, to investigate the determinants of Southeast Asian manufacturers' efficiencies.

The study demonstrates that listed manufacturers in Indonesia and Singapore achieve the highest average profitability and marketability efficiencies among the six Southeast Asian countries. The study also shows that the cash ratio, institutional ownership, headcount and technology-application positively affect Southeast Asian-listed manufacturers' profitability and marketability efficiencies at different levels of significance.

The current study is the first assessment of the listed manufacturers' profitability and marketability efficiencies in Southeast Asian countries, which consist of different market levels (developed, emerging and frontier markets). The study is a reference source for regional investors, manufacturers' managers and governments to make appropriate decisions in investing, managing and enhancing the development of the Southeast Asian manufacturing sector.

The purpose of this paper is to measure profitability and marketability efficiencies as well as examine the efficiencies’ determinants of listed manufacturing firms in Vietnam.

This study employs a bootstrap two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to investigate the profitability and marketability efficiencies of 102 listed manufacturing firms on Vietnam stock market from 2007 to 2018. The study also applies fractional regression models (FRM) to identify the determinants of Vietnam manufacturing firms’ efficiencies.

The results reveal that Vietnam manufacturing firms obtain higher average profitability efficiency scores (0.888) than marketability efficiency scores (0.527) from 2007 to 2018. The high-tech firms achieve better profitability and marketability efficiencies than the traditional (resource-intensive and labour-intensive) Vietnam manufacturing firms in recent years (2016–2018). Further, the financial and non-financial factors have heterogeneous impacts on Vietnam manufacturing enterprises’ profit and market valuation efficiencies.

Due to the nature of DEA technique that requires every decision-making unit to have available data of all inputs and outputs, the listed Vietnam manufacturing firms that have incomplete data or go public after 2007 are not included in the data set.

This study provides a reference for Vietnam manufacturing managers to position their firms competitively in the market as well as make wise operating, financing and management decisions.

This is the first study that attempts to combine bootstrap two-stage DEA and FRM, which are considered advantageous methods for DEA scores’ measurements and determinant evaluations in the current literature.

Washington.—The Government of the United States at the Copenhagen Conference of the Food and Agricultural Organisation last September firmly supported the twin objectives of Sir John Orr's World Food Hoard proposals of raising the diets of all nations to a health standard and of stabilising agricultural prices at levels fair alike to both producers and consumers. Sir John's specific proposal for a World Food Board was not considered at Copenhagen. Instead, the U.S., the United Kingdom and all other nations represented at Copenhagen unanimously agreed to refer the whole question to a 17‐nation Preparatory Commission which met in Washington from October 28th to January 24th. The Commission was specifically instructed by the terms of reference to consider Sir John's proposal and any other alternative proposals which might be offered. The preparatory commission in its recommendations followed the instructions in the terms of reference and its final recommendations as made public on January 24th containing little of the specific machinery of the original proposals of Sir John's. But the twin objectives of Sir John's proposals were retained in the final recommendations. Had a show down come to Sir John's proposals at Copenhagen, the U.S. would have opposed it. Of this there can be no doubt. As early as August 9th, a month before the Copenhagen Conference, the U.S. Department of State issued a public statement on the Orr proposals. Any doubt as to the U.S. position was dispelled by Under Secretary of Agriculture Norris E. Dodd, who was chief American delegate at both Copenhagen and Washington. In his opening speech before the preparatory commission in Washington on October 28th, Mr. Dodd gave four reasons why the U.S. opposed the Orr proposal. He said: “First, we consider it doubtful whether a World Food Board or any similar device would, by itself, be adequate to deal with the effect that widespread government intervention threatens to have upon the agricultural demand and supply situation over the world once the present emergency has come to an end. Second, we consider it doubtful whether any combination of buffer‐stock and surplus‐disposal operations which contemplates the establishment of a two‐price system can be operated successfully without quantitative controls of supply. In our view such controls are not adequately provided for. Third, there is the fact that price, production and distribution problems differ greatly between different commodities and at different times. An over‐all body such as the proposed World Food Board would not suffice for dealing effectively with these so different and rapidly changing problems, which ought to be dealt with by special negotiations, commodity by commodity. Fourth, Governments are not likely to place the large funds needed for financing such a plan in the hands of an international agency over whose operations and price policy they would have little or no control. In view of these considerations, we believe that it is fortunate that the Copenhagen Conference has given this Commission a free hand to consider alternative machinery for achieving the basic objectives which we all support.” The original Orr proposals called for an internationally‐managed and internationally‐financed World Food Board. It would have bought and sold exportable surpluses at agreed minimum and maximum prices, thus providing a buffer‐stock against fluctuation in price and supply. Excess supplies under the Orr plan were to be sold cheaply to feed chronically malnourished people. FAO would work with such nations and with other international argencics to build producing and buying power so as to remove the underlying causes of poor diets. A statement by Under Secretary of Agriculture Mr. Norris E. Dodd, made on January 24th in connection with the report of the FAO Preparatory Commission on the food proposals, said, in part: “The principal ideas which the U.S. has advanced in the Commission are: (1) That the problems of better diets and price stabilisation mustbe approached in connection with the general expansion of production, employment, trade and consumption, as envisaged in the proposals for an International Trade Organisation, which we consider as complementary to the FAO programme. (2) That particular problems of price stabilisation can best be met through separate but co‐ordinated international agreements covering the specific commodities affected, within the general framework of principles for such agreements provided in the proposed ITO. (3) That under such commodity agreements the participating nations should consider methods of using excess supplies to support special food programmes to improve the diets of the most needy groups in connection with long‐term development plans designed to overcome the causes of malnutrition. (4) That the co‐ordination of national agricultural and nutritional programmes is so important the FAO should bring about annual consultation upon such programmes among the responsible national officials.” The principal U.S. proposals incorporated in the final report and recommendations of the FAO Preparatory Commission published on January 24th may be summarised as follows: The international commodity agreement approach to the stabilisation problem. The use of excess supplies under commodity agreements to support supplemental food programmes for vulnerable groups. Annual consultation of national agricultural and nutritional officials for the purpose of bringing about co‐ordination and integration of national programmes. Appointment of an interim co‐ordinating committee on international commodity agreements to bridge the gap between FAO and the projected International Trade Organisation. Acceptance in the final report of the American proposal for international commodity agreements may be construed as not merely an American victory since the commodity agreements would be negotiated within the framework of the proposed International Trade Organisation. Governments of 18 nations are represented on the ITO Preparatory Committee which met in London simultaneously with the FAO Preparatory Commission sessions in Washington. Here is the basic difference between the Orr World Food Hoard proposals and the final recommendation. Under a commodity agreement, such as provided for in the final report, each nation holds its own reserves, and finances its own operations. It provides for a co‐ordinated system of nationally managed and nationally financed buffer stocks of individual commodities. The Orr proposal envisaged an internationally managed and internationally financed World Food Board operating in many commodities. The U.S. position with reference to tieing in ITO with FAO was set out fully by Mr. Dodd in his October 28th speech before the FAO Preparatory Commission. Mr. Dodd said: “In putting forward its suggestions for an International Trade Organisation, the Government of the United States has had in mind the importance of securing— with the help of a reduction in trade barriers and other measures—a world‐wide expansion in employment, production, trade and consumption. We consider that action toward this end is of fundamental importance to the achievement of the objectives which this (Prepara‐tary) Commission is considering… It is the considered view of the United States Government that the ITO proposals provide a useful starling point for the deliberations of this Commission.” Previous U.S. experience in attempting to solve the riddle of farm surplus in the midst of hunger has been uneven and spotty. Perhaps the worst failure in this regard was the ill‐fated Federal Farm Board created in 1929 to arrest the drastic decline in farm prices. The Board advanced large sums to farmers' co‐operatives which extended loans to its member co‐operatives to induce farmers to withhold wheat and cotton from the market, without, however, controlling production. The Farm Board finally concluded that no such scheme could succeed without control over production, and production control therefore became a salient feature of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. This Act was amended in 1936 to meet the objections of the U.S. Supreme Court, which held it unconstitutional, but the essential requirement of control over production was retained and remains in effect to‐day. The Commodity Credit Corporation, a Government buying and selling agency created in 1933, has succeeded where the Farm Board failed, because the Government has exercised a degree of control over production. At Copenhagen last September, Mr. Dodd referred to the success of the Commodity Credit Corporation in these words: “Some people have expressed fear that stabilisation of farm prices would keep food prices above the reach of many consumers, but in the United States we have used the Commodity Credit Corporation effectively to protect farm prices, and food consumption, meantime, has increased. Furthermore, Commodity Credit stocks have served as reserves against years of bad weather and poor crops—reserves that were welcome indeed during the last war.” The Biblical idea of Joseph—of an ever‐normal granary—wherein surplus farm supplies are carried over from years of good harvest as a reserve against lean years of crop failure and hunger war and popularised in the United States by Mr. Henry A. Wallace during his service as Secretary of Agriculture, 1933–40. Sir John's World Food Board proposal also envisaged this evernormal granary concept, but failed of adoption because of the heavy expense involved, together with lack of adequate controls over production. It was this absence of production control in the Orr plan that led the U.S. to oppose the Orr plan, even though the country was in sympathy with its humanitarian objectives of raising living standards through expansion of consumption.

If it is a fraud to dye an unripe orange to make it look ripe, why should it be permissible to dye winter butter to make it look like summer butter?”, he says. Or one might add, to dye a biscuit brown to imply the presence of chocolate or to colour a cake yellow to simulate the addition of eggs? Our third heading is, What? What colouring matters should be allowed, and upon what conditions? Great Britain is the only leading country which has not a legal schedule of permitted colours. In this country any colouring agent may be added to food, except compounds of antimony, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, lead and zinc. Gamboge, picric acid, victoria yellow, manchester yellow, aurantia and aurine are also prohibited. The addition, however, of any other colouring agent which is injurious to health would be an offence under the Food and Drugs Act. Other countries, including the United States of America, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Denmark have drawn up lists of permissible colours. And so the question arises—is it preferable to draw up a list of permissible colours or one of prohibited colours? It is obvious that if only certain colours are prohibited the remainder may be legally employed so long as they are not injurious to health. Thus a colouring agent may be used for a considerable time before it is proved to be injurious, whereas, if only‐certain colouring agents which have been previously proved to be non‐injurious were permitted, this risk of possible danger to health would be avoided. There is no doubt that in many cases proof of injury to the health of the human being is difficult to obtain. Much of the work that has been carried out to establish whether a particular dye is harmless or not has involved the use of dogs as test subjects. This does not appear to be a very satisfactory method of testing, for obviously dogs may react very differently from human beings towards chemicals. A dog's digestive powers are stronger than those of humans. No one would think of suggesting that bones are suitable food for humans just because dogs love them! Matta found that the capacity to depress the human digestion is possessed not only by poisonous dyes but also by dyes which he had proved to be non‐poisonous to animals. In bacteriology the addition of very small amounts of certain dyes to the culture medium will retard the growth of particular organisms and therefore it would seem possible that some dyes might adversely affect the action of enzymes in the body. So it would seem of importance that, if possible, all colouring matters, before being permitted to be used in food, should be proved by a competent authority to be harmless to human beings. If the effects of colouring matters upon the human digestive processes cannot be easily carried out in the body then it might be possible to perform such tests in vitro, using artificial gastric juice. It may be argued that the proportion of colouring matter added to food, ranging from about 1 part in 2,000 to about 1 part in 300,000, is so small that any particular colouring agent would need to be a deadly poison before any appreciable injurious effect upon health would occur. This argument does not, however, take into account the possible injurious effects which may be caused by the frequent ingestion of colouring matters which may have but mild toxic properties. It is known, for instance, that many synthetic colours have marked antiseptic properties even in highly diluted solutions, and therefore they may adversely affect the digestive processes. In any case, surely it would be wiser to eliminate all risks by requiring that official physiological tests should be carried out upon colouring matters before they are permitted to be used in food. One has to safeguard not only the healthy person but also the very young, the old and those who are of a delicate constitution. A harmless colour has been defined in Canada as one “which will not retard digestion nor have special physiological effects when consumed in quantities corresponding to 2 grains per day per adult.” The Departmental Committee in its report on “The use of preservatives and colouring matters in food,” published in 1924, stated that “It appears to us that definite evidence from direct experiments should be obtained as to the harmlessness of a dye before its use should be permitted in food. We have therefore come to the conclusion that a list of permitted colours should be prepared and that no colours other than those in such a list should be allowed to be used in the preparation of food. The list should, in our opinion, be prepared by the Minister of Health and issued by him, provision being made for the consideration of claims advanced by traders for the recognition and approval of additional colours on satisfactory evidence of harmlessness. We do not think that action such as this should seriously embarrass manufacturing interests, or is a course on which it is unreasonable, in view of the importance of the subject, to insist.” Yet, in spite of these recommendations of the Committee, no list of permitted colours was passed into law, and one wonders why. One argument against the drawing up of a list of prohibited colours is that even if a non‐prohibited colour is proved to the satisfaction of a given Court to be injurious to health that decision is not binding on other Courts and so there may be a lack of uniformity. A certain colour may be permitted in one town and prohibited in the next, which fact might add to the difficulties of the large scale manufacturer whose products are sold over a wide area. The leading manufacturers of dyes for use in food no doubt exercise great care in their preparation and such products are normally free from objectionable impurities, but it is possible that other dyestuff manufacturers are not so particular concerning the purity of their products. For instance, about 1938 a firm was fined for selling “Damson Blue” containing 540 parts of lead per million. Therefore it would seem necessary that some official control over the dyes that are sold for use in food should be introduced. The manufacture of some dyes involves complicated processes, and it is stated that in the production of one particular colour over 100 different chemicals are used and thirty different reactions, occupying several weeks, must be carried out before the finished colour is produced.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between boardroom gender diversity and intellectual capital (IC) efficiency in China – while the previous literature focuses only on traditional accounting-based performance measures such as return on assets or Tobin’s Q.

A well-developed Arrelano–Bond generalised method of moment (GMM) is applied to account for endogeneity – mainly because of simultaneity and unobserved heterogeneity. Moreover, this study uses an adjusted-value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) model to measure the IC efficiency of 906 Chinese listed firms for 2010-2014.

The empirical analysis shows a significant relationship between gender diversity and IC efficiency, in static ordinary least square estimation, but this disappears when endogeneity is accounted for using dynamic GMM. This insignificant relationship remains consistent, even when two alternative proxies of gender diversity, i.e. the Blau index and the women dummy, are used.

This study provides some useful insights into the traditional Chinese corporate structure where females cannot use their powers to bring corporate changes in firms. The findings show that gender-related stereotypical attitudes continue to exist in China. The regulators, therefore, should look into strengthening gender related regulations – which are currently non-existent in China.

This is the first study of its kind to investigate the relationship between gender diversity and IC efficiency in China using the A-VAIC model and GMM to mitigate endogeneity.

This study aims to examine the relationship between bank capital and bank risk during COVID-19.

The study covers 20 countries during the period from Q4:2018 to Q4:2020, using different measurements of risk with consideration for the interrelationship between bank risk and bank capital and the impact of COVID-19.

The findings show that higher bank capital mitigates bank market risk and default risk; banks incur higher market risk during the COVID-19 period, and these risks are greater if banks have higher capital levels; and low-capitalized banks reduce risks more than well-capitalized banks, and moderately low-capitalized banks behave the most prudentially. These results are robust to different capital measures and model settings.

The research results are important in proving the motivation and practicality of capital regulation as well as the impact of COVID-19 as an exogenous shock to the bank’s operations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relationship between bank capital and bank risk. In addition, while most of the studies on this nexus are based on the US data and the conclusions are inclusive; our results provide empirical cross-country evidences on the relationship between bank capital and bank risk.

This study examines the relationship between age, physical violence and non‐physical abuse within the context of intimate partner violence (IPV). It tests the hypothesis that while the prevalence of physical violence is lower among older women, other forms of intimate partner violence are not related to age. The study uses data from the Michigan Violence Against Women Survey to measure physical violence and two forms of non‐physical abuse: psychological vulnerability and autonomy‐limiting behavior. Findings support the hypothesis that the rate of physical abuse is negatively related to age but the rate of nonphysical abuse is not. By expanding the definition of IPV to include other forms of abusive behavior, the study finds that older women have IPV prevalence rates similar to younger women. This raises the question of whether batterers alter their means of power and control by emphasizing non‐physical abuse rather than continuing to use physical violence that exposes them to formal and informal social controls and sanctions.

From earliest times the land and all it produced to feed and sustain those who dwelt on it was mankind's greatest asset. From the Biblical “land of milk and honey”, down through history to the “country of farmers” visualised by the American colonists when they severed the links with the mother country, those who had all their needs met by the land were blessed — they still are! The inevitable change brought about by the fast‐growing populations caused them to turn to industry; Britain introduced the “machine age” to the world; the USA the concept of mass production — and the troubles and problems of man increased to the present chaos of to‐day. There remained areas which depended on an agri‐economy — the granary countries, as the vast open spaces of pre‐War Russia; now the great plains of North America, to supply grain for the bread of the peoples of the dense industrial conurbations, which no longer produced anything like enough to feed themselves.

Motivated by the enactment of non-financial reporting regulations by the European Parliament, this paper aims to investigate the impact of European Union (EU) directive 2014/95/EU on the quantity of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures by the S&P Europe 350 index firms. This study also investigates whether the implementation of the non-financial information (NFI) reporting regulations influences the association between ESG disclosures and firms’ earnings risk.

To measure the impact of mandatory regulations on the quantity of ESG disclosures, this study estimates the average treatment effects using a propensity weighted sample. Then this study uses the difference-in-differences method to estimate the differences in the association between ESG disclosures and earning risk before and after implementation of the EU directive.

The results show a significant positive impact of the EU directive on the quantity of ESG disclosures for the sample European public-interest entities, which indicates that the mandatory NFI reporting requirements could boost the availability of increasingly demanded ESG related information. The enhanced association between the ESG disclosures and firms’ earnings risk during the post-directive period reveals that mandating NFI reporting also increases the quality of ESG disclosures.

Using the legitimacy and decision-usefulness theories, this study provides novel evidence concerning the impact of the EU directive on the quantity and quality of ESG disclosures.

This report is drawn up by the Director‐General of Health and Medical Services for State of Queensland and presented by him to the Minister for Health and Home Affairs of the State. The report is a record of conscientious and efficient public service by a depleted staff working under great difficulties; over a wide stretch of territory; hampered by shortage of labour and materials for repair or construction. In addition to this was the concentration of large bodies of troops in areas by no means primarily designed for their accommodation. It may be remarked that the huge area now called Queensland was separated from New South Wales in 1859. Its area is 670,000 square miles. Length from north to south 1,300–1,400 miles and from east to west at the widest about 1,000 miles. The greater part lies in the tropics. The east coast and for some distance inland is a trade wind and monsoon belt. With this region the report is mainly concerned. The rainfall diminishes towards west and south. The temperature of the State is by no means excessive. In general the climate is a good one. It is in favour of the public health authorities. On January 1st, 1945, the estimated population was in round figures just over a million, including Brisbane with 384,370. There is closer settlement in the east and along the east coast. Ports, mining and manufactures have developed urban areas so that in addition to Brisbane we have sub‐offices such as Cairns, Toowomba, Townsville, and Rockhampton. Owing to war conditions already referred to, it was not possible without much difficulty for the head quarters staff to carry out sanitary surveys in country areas. It is noted that the limited staff available “carried out all duties assigned to them in the same competent and efficient manner” as before. Rockhampton states that there was only one officer available for a district with a population of 40,000; Cairns that 50 towns were visited with a total of 113 separate visits and a distance of 6,334 miles being traversed. These figures give some idea of the demands made on the sanitary officers. The inspections in one area included anti‐malaria drainage, 39 inspections; malaria investi‐gation, 9; mosquito infestation, 10; swamps, 2; rat infestation, 73; food premises, 77; milk premises, 28; food factories, 129. It will be noticed that much attention is given to the danger of mosquito infestation, with the attendant risk of malaria. In 1943 the Government offered a 50 per cent. subsidy to local authorities for carrying out approved mosquito eradication measures, and though the response was not as great as was expected, the expenditure by those local authorities who, at the time of making this report, had availed themselves of the scheme runs into many thousands of pounds. This was mainly for drainage works, but in addition to this there was spraying and the appointment of additional inspectors. Taking one or two instances, Brisbane expended £173,375; Rockhampton £8,918; Charleville £4,000. It is stated “in Toowomba and to a lesser degree in the other large towns [in the area] the townspeople have become mosquito conscious” and will readily report the presence of even a few mosquitoes. On the other hand in country districts the attitude seems to be that mosquitoes have always been present and will always be present, so “Why worry?” A good instance of bucolic fatalism. After the rains it is obvious that unless water be run off from or sprayed in town puddles and from patches of swampy ground nearby these places become breeding grounds for the nuisance. In the 1944–5 period 696 cases of malaria were notified. Many of these were possibly recurrent attacks among Service and ex‐Service men. Still, the “utmost vigilance” is necessary. The rat nuisance and danger is common to every port in the world. Apart from the fouling and destruction of food and house infestation there is the graver menace of plague. This risk in Queensland most happily seems to be slight, as out of 113,000 examinations of rat bodies and spleen smears no instance of Pasteurella pestis was detected, but again “Vigilance” is the watchword. Poisoning (several kinds of poisons are used), gassing, trapping and hunting are all good within their limits, but rat proofing, removal of harbourages, the use of sanitary rubbish bins, and so forth, are admittedly better, as they strike at the root of the evil. Some seven cities are named where the rat population has not diminished during the last seven years owing to the latter precautions having been more or less neglected. These “starve the rat” and “build out the rat.” Milk claims a large share of attention. The offences are of the kind that we know so well in this country, namely added water and fat deficiency. With regard to added water, some of the figures given range from 19 per cent. to 34 per cent., with, we are glad to note, a correspondingly heavy fine. The Queensland Health Acts prescribe a fine of not less than £1 for each one per centum of added water up to a maximum of £50. It is illegal to carry water on a milk delivery cart when milk is being sold therefrom. Some dishonest vendors had adopted the practice of taking a dip out of a can of water so carried at the instant of delivery to the buyer. It was clearly almost impossible under these circumstances to prosecute successfully a dishonest vendor. Rockhampton states that out of 199 samples of milk officially analysed in the district in the period under review, eleven convictions were obtained for added water, and four for carrying water on the milk delivery van. It is added “Whilst the number of samples of milk which proved to be adulterated with added water was almost twice that of the previous year, it was more than ever apparent that the practice most frequently adopted by offenders is that of carrying water in smaller cans to adulterate the milk when measuring for individual customers.” This evil practice would seem to be widespread, and as its success would seem to depend on delivery from large open containers—an old and almost obsolete method—the remedy is to insist, as far as that be possible having regard to local conditions, that all milk should be pasteurised and sold in bottles. Clearly a person who systematically perpetrates day by day a series of petty frauds on his neighbours is likely to be as careless of their health as he is of their pocket. Pasteurising and bottling are being more widely practised. The periodical examination by the health authorities of milk so treated shows that statutory standards of purity are maintained. Most of the milk sold in Toowomba is pasteurised milk; the same seems to be the case in Townsville, and, as we should expect, in a city such as Brisbane. The game is, or, as we hope, was, an uphill one for milk vendors. Townsville says that local dairymen “still endeavour to carry on under very severe handicaps, such as staff shortages, transport and equipment shortages, and lack of sufficient fodder.” We hope that these drawbacks may by now be referred to in the past tense, for Cairns hopefully stated that “a return to normality is gener ally observable.” During the period under review 2,099 “legal samples” were taken by inspectors in accordance with the provisions of the Health Acts. Of these, 79 85 per cent. passed the standard; 3.95 were adulterated with water; 3.176 were deficient in fat only; 12.44 were below the standard in total solids and/or solids not fat. Of the 2,099 samples taken 1,666 were taken in the “Greater Brisbane Area”; 81.2 per cent. were, it seems, below the standard quality. As the population of the city of Brisbane is about 384,000 it is perhaps not too much to say that 40 per cent. of the total population of the State of Queensland is consuming milk a large proportion of which—about 19 per cent.—is below the standard set by the laws of the State. At Rockhampton 92 out of 135 samples, and at Townsville 28 out of 36, passed the standard. The figures are much the same for seven other towns named and 11 others not named. The results for the whole State is the subject for unfavourable criticism by the Health Department. Proprietary Medicines.—The report states that the prescribing of expensive medicines of this type is a common practice, and that the pharmacist may put the medicine in a different container and usually replaces the proprietary label with his own. “The prescribing of proprietary medicines may maintain the patient's faith in his medical practitioner : it also augments the profit of the pharmacist.” Price fixing has reduced the latter. Homeopathic medicines claim some attention. “As is common with homeopathic medicines those submitted during the year consisted of milk sugar only.” Saccharum lactis seems to be harmless kind of stuff with no particularly marked positive properties. Dose ad lib, says the pharmacopoelig;ia. It is “used for weakly children,” and “diabetics are said to occasionally show slight improvement” by ingesting it. Its normal price is about half‐a‐crown a pound. When, however, it has been “improved ” by the addition of minute traces of the phosphates of calcium, magnesium, and potassium and of calcium fluoride, then made up into tabloid form and sold, the recorded price in one instance had risen to £15 9s. 0d. a pound. The Health Department does not accept an enhanced price to be necessarily a measure of an increase in therapeutic virtues. It observes that“ two hundred tablets of one preparation (a month's course) contained no more mineral substance than one‐third of a teaspoonful of milk,” and after some further remarks to the same purpose, suggests “that in the light of modern therapeutics there would appear to be necessity for health administrations to define their attitude towards homeopathy.” It further quotes responsible medical opinion to the effect that “modern therapeutics has inherited from homeopathy the knowledge of the remarkable power the body possesses of healing itself, if given a chance.” Vitamins. —The grossly exaggerated claims of some food manufacturers and patent medicine manufacturers are referred to. It seems that in 1941 it was suggested to the Queensland Department of Health “that vitamin claims for foods and patent medicines should be re stricted within the known knowledge on the subject or within scientific bounds,” and that the Canadian definition of “vitamin” should be adopted; and that in 1943 the Commonwealth National Health and Medical Research Council recommended that the quantity of each vitamin present in a food should be indicated on the label in units per ounce or pound, and in drugs or medicinal preparations in units per dose. It is perhaps no great exaggeration to say that magic and medicine are still mutually identified in the minds of a sufficient number of people to make the hawking about of what is, in many cases, rubbish, a monetary success. The belief held by such people that what is repeatedly stated must for that and for no other reason be unquestionably true, together with an appeal to their fears and impulses form the psychological basis for success based on the claims made. Thus, it may be said that London, Brisbane, and the aborigines of the Cape York Peninsula are in this respect on much the same level.