DEFAULTERS' CAMP AT BALMORAL

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24367, 20 September 1944, Page 2

DEFAULTERS' CAMP AT BALMORAL

♦ SPECIAL SURVEY OF INMATES A survey of the inmates of the military defaulters’ detention camp at Balmoral, North Canterbury, has been made recently by a committee operating under the National Service Department. Other surveys are now being made at the detention camps in the North Island. The committee is taking evidence as to the reasons for the defaulters being in detention, and every man’s case is being considered individually. It. is understood that the committee’s inquiries will form the basis of a general report on the whole subject of detention camps. . , The Balmoral detention camp is the only one in the South Island, the other at Conical Hill, Otago, having been closed down some time ago. Defaulters were transferred to Balmoral from the North Island in September, 1942, the camp being established in the State Forest Service plantations. The first gangs started work in the plantations in October, and since then they have been engaged in pruning and thinning trees, building roads through the plantations. and cutting and stacking firewood for dispatch to Christchurch. Most of the defaulters in the Balmoral camp come ffom Canterbury. They have been sent there because they are good conduct men, and also because they come from the South Island. All, however, have spent a period in the principal defaulters’ camp at Strathmore, in the North Island. There were 40 men in the camp in April last year.