The Journal - Patriot INDEPENDENT IN POLITICS - Published Mondays and Thursdays at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina JULIUS C. HUBBARD?MRS. D. J. CARTER Publishers 1932?DANIEL J. CARTER?1945 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One Year $2.00 (In Wilkes and Adjoining Counties) 'One Year . $3.00 (Outside Wilkes and Adjoining Counties) Rates to Those in Service: One Year (anywhere) $2.00 Entered at the postoffice at North Wilkes boro, North Carolina, as Second-Class matter under Act of March 4, 1897. Thursday, October ?0, 1949 i Caro>,t>o CV r \i s $12,000,000,000 For Inferior Medicine How much would the proposed scheme for compulsory government health insur ance cost the taxpayers of this country? Many estimates have been made, and most of them have contained a large ele ment of guesswork. As a pattern, however, we can take Britain's experience with her "free" medical care plan. According to Aneurin Bevan, the Minister of Health, the plan is costing Britain more than 50 cents a week a person?over twice the original official estimates. The total cost of the system this year will probably exceed $1, 500,000,000. In an editorial on the subject, E. T. Leech, editor of the Pittsburgh Press, says: "On the same per capita cost, a similar U. S. health plan would cost about $6,000,000,000 a year. But far higher living standards would probably make the bill twice that amount." In other words, at a time when the Federal government is unable to make both ends meet even with a $40,000,000,000 income, compulsory health insurance alone would pile up to $12,000,000,000 a year more on the sagging backs of the taxpayers! that would not be all?not by a long shot. Government-medicine would levy an enormous cost in a coin other than money. It would?if experience elsewhere means anything at all?lower the stand ards of medical care. It would be a barrier to research and preventive medicine which, in the long run, can do more than anything else to improve the health of a people. It would create a great new politi cal bureaucracy, with sweeping powers over medical practice. And, sooner or lat er, it would inevitably end in completely socialised medicine. Sorrowed Comment THE WILKESBOROS AND THE FARMERS (Winston-Salem Journal) When Governor W. Kerr Scott bemoan ed the failure of urban civic groups in North Carolina to aid the farmers and en deavor to draw tighter the bonds of co operation between towns and rural areas he evidently wasn't thinking of the Wilkes - boros. This week, for the fourth consecutive year under a program sponsored by the Wilkes County Chamber of Commerce, the towns of Wilkesboro and North Wilkes boro staged a gala Farmers Day program which brought sereraJ thousand rural peo ple from six Northwestern North Carolina counties into those towns to enjoy a pro gram of entertainment, recreation, a mammoth parade, and hear informative and inspiring speeches by area and State civic an