SOLDIERS' FOOD

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 16, 19 July 1915, Page 2

SOLDIERS' FOOD

EVIDENCE OF SUPPLY OFFICER TRENTHAM CAMP COMMISSION.

At the continuation of the Trentham Camp Commission on Saturday afternoon (his Honour Mr. Justice Hosking presiding), Lieutenant Philip Newman Petty, Supply and Transport Officer, described the method under which food and forage were obtained. Contracts were accepted by the Defence Department. The Supply Officer saw tha£ proper quantities were delivered and distributed to the companies. The scale laid down by regulation was: Bread l^lb, flour loz, fresh meat l^lb, cheese 2oz, coffee pepper l-32nd oz, salt £oz, sugar 4oz, tea foz, potatoes lib, (if new, or other vegetables fib), jam 3oz,' butter 3oz, oatmeal 2oz, onions £lb, milk £ pint or £ tin, rice 2oz per week, currants loz per week. This was better in several points than the British Army scale. The food was of excellent quality, and he had only one minor complaint. Fresh vegetables were hard to procure. , His Honour : Yes ; you would have tp buy up several hiarket gardens. Lieutenant Petty said he made an arrangement with a man at Taita to supply fresh vegetables at market prices, From him be obtained about 120 sacks of cabbage a week, £ ton of carrots, and £ ton of parsnips, which went into the stew. A sack of cabbage contained two dozen, sufficient for 96 men. His Honour : There have been complaints about lack of vegetables. Witness said he understood that there had been, but that was not, the fault of the Supply Department. The vegetables were' issued and were sufficient to give the men fresh vegetables twice a week at least. He believed that one difficulty was that vegetables could not be cooked for all men at the same time, so that if some men had green vegetables and others had not, there was liable to be, grumbling. The Solicitor-General : Have you heard that gifts of fruit and vegetables have come to the camp and been deliberately wasted because the men in the cookhouses found it too much trouble to clean them? Lieutenant Petty : " J have heard a great many_ things." He did not think, he said,' that any food was wastedVegetables, when there were a lot to be cleaned, might not be cleaned in tho most economical way, but they were not thrown away or left to rot. Gifts for the men. were always noted, and reached , their destination. A record of such gifts and the way they were disposed of was kept. Very often, he might explain, vegetables were sent, say, for the Taranaki men, but as the Taranaki .men were scattered through all units, it could not be certain that each man would have a share of the gift. Captain M'Cristell was recalled to explain the method of "reporting sick." The ordei'ly corporal of each section visited each tent and reported to the orderly sergeant the names of men sick. Those men were then marched along to the doctor, or taken on stretchers if they could not walk. The Solicitor-General : No enquiry is made as to whether a man ought to be exposed to the wet or carried through the rain? — No. The witness added that a man was rarely so bad on the first day that he could not walk down or should not be carried. His Honour: That fs for the medical officer to say. His Honour asked if witness ' had known of men left lying in the tents. Captain M'Cristell said he had read of such things in the papers. Some of the statements in the papers were true, but these were not. The only men _ 1 have ever seen lying in the tents in the daytime have * been men reported for light duty. The line orderlies would have seen feuch men. /At this stage the Commission adjourned until 10.30 a.m. to-day.