The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1902. TROOPSHIP SCANDALS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 242, 11 October 1902, Page 4

The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1902. TROOPSHIP SCANDALS.

For the cause that lacks assistance For the wrong that needs resistance For the future m the distance And the good that we can do.

The report of the Commission instituted in Australia to inquire into what is known as the Drayton Grange scandal has been issued. That the closing act of the national drama in which the self-governing Colonies voluntarily came to the assistance of

the Motherland in time of stress •should be scandals necessitating Commissions of Inquiry, cannot but be regretted by everyone. Much as we may deplore the circumstances that rendered a judicial investigation necessary, however, it has to be acknowledged that no alternative remained to the course of sifting the question with thoroughness. The unpleasant truths involved are at last laid completely bare, and even if hideous the ill-savour of the whole thing will pass more quickly than if there had been any attempt at suppression.

The Drayton Grange Commission has confirmed what .was made sufficiently manifest by thcjnquiries held in Wellington, namely, that the colonial trooper returning from South Africa was not amenable to the strict discipline which the ' British regular must perforce submit to, and in which is to be found a necessary precaution against disease. The Drayton Grange fiuding also' coincides with those in the cases of the Orient and Britannic in showing that a section of the men were inexpressibly filthy in their habits. Fu-r the practices of these beasts the cleanly section of the troopers, which constituted all but a small percentage, must suffer under a stigma of the worst kind. The Australian Commission points out in this connection what must have occurred to most people who have followed the course of the various inquiries when it says "the majority seem to have frequently submitted to discomfort, or worse, when a little arrangement on their part, would have provided relief." Had the respectable majority taken, the measures within their power with the loathly brutes who made their own quarters on the ships little better than stinking urinals and pigstyes, and who were too lazy to cleanse themselves from their lousy condition, .we would have had more, sympathy with them. But they are not without excuse in the fact that the officers, whose- duty it was to take steps in this matter, were apparently quite incapable of enforcing discipline. Britishers, as' a rule, are apt to put up with discomfort rather than take the trouble and incur the odium of setting' things right, especially when the responsibility of doing this properly belongs to other people. With lack of discipline in the ease of men recruited as the colonials were we can have some tolerance as long as it is not allowed to get to such a pitch as to endanger IhealUh, but towards the degrading and swinish habits of some of the men we can feel nothing but the utmost repulsion and sorrow that they are able to point to the colonies as their native or adopted home.

In the case of tbe Drayton Grange more blame is apparently placed on the War Office embarkation authorities t-ia_i was done in the Ne^w Zealand finding. Poor organisation of the medical staff, inadequate (hospital arrangements, and overcrowding of the transport, are all laid to theiicharge. The task of Imperial Army officers in the transport branch of the service was exceedingly severe just after the completion of peace, and to some extent allowances may be made for them: but there certainly would a-ppear to have been an amount of culpable negligence, and if this could be sheeted home it would |c vastly to the good of the service. '■' As to ttie conduct and treatment ".

of the men on board, we may reasonnbly hope that even if the occasion does not arise for a very long thnt= for the despatch of colonial contingents, the lesson of 1902 will obviate the very unpleasant business on

which we would like to see the page now turned down for ever.