AT HOPU HOPU.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 176, 26 July 1940, Page 6

AT HOPU HOPU.

The account, published yesterday, of living conditions as observed at Hopu Hopu military camp will have been partially reassuring to those who have been distressed by hearing stories of the kind which become exaggerated in the retelling. Hopu Hopu, partly because of its situation and partly because it lacks permanent hutments, has never been a good camp. The Territorials who are in training there have mostly come new from the indulgent comforts of civilian life, and it is perhaps not surprising that they have, in large numbers, caught heavy colds, and a considerable number are in hospital. These are in hospital for the same reason that men in civilian life stay at home for a day or two to shake off a heavy cold. But there is something more to be said. If a severe and dangerous type of influenza broke out—and the possibility should not be dismissed —are the conditions at Hopu Hopu such that it could be controlled, and such also that those who foJl victims to it would all certainly recover T The description of the methods of dish-washing employed (though not peculiar to Hopu Hopu) is not such as to encourage confidence that any germ-! carried disease would not, inevitably, spread quickly. Such methods strike the civilian new to camp as not only nauseating but unnecessary. The army is not kept so short of money that there cannot be a plenitude of hot water for the purposes of dish-washing. It is a matter of organisation, and perhaps still more of overcoming a bad old habit. This matter, and the matter of ensuring, in advance, that in the case of an outbreak of disease of a potentially dangerous type, every man affected shall be compelled to "report sick" in time, and be removed promptly, call for renewed consideration by the army medical authorities. It is not a question of "coddling soldiers" —who don't, in any event, wish to be coddled. It is a question of military efficiency. The men who' are in camp have a great deal to learn in three months; and epidemics! ! play havoc with schedules of training. 1