CAMP STAFFS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 187, 7 August 1918, Page 4

CAMP STAFFS.

FIT MEN GET NOTICE. {Special to "Star.") WELLINGTON, this day Anticipating by a week or so the nun. bcation of the Defence Expenditure Com ' mission report, the Government gave--' notice to all the fit men employed on th. • camp staffs at Trentham and Featherston to hold themselves in readiness to proceed to the front. It is not anticipated that there will be a general clearance at once, but it is evidently the intention to pat.as many returned men into the training branches as possible As reinforcements are being reduced, no j doubt some of the present staff can be spared, even if there were no returned soldiers to replace them. iAs would be indicated in the Defence :, [Minister's memorandum accompanying % the Commission's report, there is no in- " tention to change the period of training .. - in New Zealand. A very important objection to a change, which w_s not , given prominence in the report, is the value of camp training in New Zealand '. as a means of eliminating numbers of ; men who are organically sound enough ''■■■■ I to pass the medical test as recruits, but who cannot stand up to the strain of drill and marching. Sometimes these ' unsound men last- for two months in ,v' ' camp, but if they are discovered in time they are discharged, making room "for a = > - thoroughly fit soldier on the transport, where room is precious,' and saving the v Dominion a couple of hundred pounds ' further expense in sending them to England and bringing them back after a period in Sling camp. Australia ships . its men soon after enlistment, but the purging process has to be undertaken in „ - England, and it is claimed that if the - total of Australian rejects at that end • could be published it would provide a ' very convincing argument in favour of - - New Zealand's system, which is more economical in the long run, and enables , the unsound man to get back sooner to ', useful civilian work. The men who manage to get as far as Sling, and then '"r; return, are known to the military as ..--.. "tourists." New Zealand has, I under- ';• stand, ■paid the training and travelling expenses of about a thousand of this . class, but the stiffening up of camp exaudnation in New Zealand has cut then? numbers down to a trifling proportion.