OFFICERS' EQUIPMENT

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 133, 2 December 1915, Page 8

OFFICERS' EQUIPMENT

10 THE EDITOR Sir, —Your correspondent, " Prismatic," on Monday, is exactly correct in his letter, concerning what I call the j skimping meanness in equipping New Zealand officers. The term is mild, {or much harsher terms should be used. Ab a. public ire are blind. and merit the enemy epithet of fools. The lack of Government equipment in officers' fighting tools has lost many lives hitherto, and will apparently continue. The Government is not saving money over it, for it will pay more than £20,000 a year in pensions for its elementary lack of provision. Fancy the insight 'shown by cheeseparing of a few hundreds at a lmge cost of. this sort! Of course, we all know lives don't count. Dead men tell no titles. Now for facts. No amount of argument can alter the fact that officers who are away, fighting for our skins and pockets, have shelled out over £40 for their outfits, that about half our officers leave without fighting tools, that patriotic societies in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, and elsewhere have in common humanity to tender aid towards equipment, that other Dominions shame New Zealand in this respect, that Great Britain allows £50 against New Zealand's £20. Let any man reckon what it will cost him for his stand-up outfit, which must bear inspection, comparison, and hard wear, duplicate it (on service a man can't well stop in bed while 'his shirt i 6 being washed), add overcoat, leggings, bedding, and sear a man must take for a long camp, then pile on the equipment laid down in the Field Service Manual. Of course, the whole lot can be bought for " £26 14s 9d." Well, if it can be provided for that sum, the Government should issue such equipment, and make' it universal and compulsory. I repeat, our men who have gone through the mill have had to pay £40 and over, and no argument whatever can alter this. But don't let indefinite talk about what could be and what is smother the fact that but for gifts half of the commissioned officers and four-fifths of the noncommissioned officers, wiio are awayfighting for our miserable skins, went without essential combatant equipment; and, I repeat, many lives have been lost through it. and more will be in open fighting. Why, the non-coms, of the Ist Australian body of 20,000 men were provided by the Commonwealth Government with 'expensive prism field glasses. Here we don't even give a beggarly opera glass, and won't even look at a prismatic, compass, or revolver. Field glasses, at £2 a-piece or less, of which there are ample stocks, would prove a godsend to our non-coms. I write strongly, because I know what I am writing about. —I am. etc., EX- VOLUNTEER. 2nd December, 1915.

Mr. Charles MacMahon has arrived in Wellington to make arrangements for shewing a new picture film dealing with the British Navy

, New Zealand is likely to receive a visit in 1917 from the "Rev Professor Stalker, D.D., of Aberdeen, one of the foremost- Presbyterians in Scotland.

The Wairarnpa Age states that Mr H. A. Kevins, Wairarapa representative of the Sheep-owners* 'Assertion, has written Mr. -M. Laracy, secretary of the Shearers' Association" demanding the names of the Wairaraoa sheep-owners who have made deductions of pay from the shearers of 2s 6d per hundred in aid of patriotic funds, and who have placed the contributions in their own names instead of those of the shearers. Mr. Nevins has offered to publish the names of such owners, if they be supplied. So far, Mr. Laracy has not replied. In the event of the names not being furnished, Mr. Ntvin* intends demanding that Mr. Laracy shall unreservedly withdraw the imputation that has been cast against the farmers of the Wairarapa.