§ (1) Any woman who produces to the Central Midwives Board satisfactory evidence that she has been trained as a midwife and certified in any other part of His Majesty's Dominions in which there is for the time being in force any Act or ordinance for the certification and registration of midwives under a public authority and which admits to its register midwives certified under the principal Act on reciprocal terms, shall, on payment of the like fee as is payable in ordinary cases, be entitled to be certified under the principal Act: Provided that the standard of training and examination required in such other part of His Majesty's Dominions is equivalent to the standard adopted by the Board.
§ (2) If any question arses under this Section as to the light of a woman to be certified under the principal Act the question shall be determined by the Privy Council.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
§ Sir A. WILLIAMSONI should like to know, seeing it is intended to allow women trained in Canada to practise in this country, why the same privilege is not to be extended to women trained in the United States, provided that the States admit women trained in this country to practise in that country. I shoud like the Committee to recognise that the United States stands in quite a different position from foreign States. The language is the same. Nurses in the United States get an excellent training as midwives, and there seems to be no reason for admitting nurses from Canada to practise here while refusing those from the United States the same privilege in the event of the privilege being reciprocal.
Mr. FISHERThis opens a very wide question. The Clause provides that a midwife who produces satisfactory evidence of having been trained as a midwife and being certified in any other part of His Majesty's 523 Dominions shall be allowed to practise as a midwife in another part of His Majesty's Dominions. My hon. Friend wants to extend that to certificated midwives whose training may have been quite as excellent in the United States. I do not know whether it would be possible to entertain a proposal for reciprocity as between this country and the United States unless we also have one for reciprocity between this country and France or some other country. I have never seen legislation founded on those lines. It opens up, indeed, a wide international question. I shoud advise the House not to make precedent, but to follow precedent and to content itself with extending to midwives properly trained in one part of His Majesty's Dominions the right to practise in another part of His Majesty's Dominions.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Clause 11 (Power of Local Supervising Authorities to Contribute to Training a Midwife) ordered to stand part of the Bill.