OUR MILITARY VISITORS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12424, 13 February 1901, Page 4

OUR MILITARY VISITORS.

The fact that the officers and men of the Imperial Representative Corps are at present the guests of the colony does not seem to have deterred some people from giving utterance to unfavourable and sweeping criticisms concerning the manner in which discipline is enforced and in which, the troops generally are treated toy their officers. The internal arrangements of the corps are quite its own affair, but-if there were any truth in the allegations made regarding the accommodation on the Britannic we should have been more than justified in liaising a. protest and, in demanding reform. Some of the statements made in Lytteltoa and Christchurch were so definite and obtained such wide credence that we caused! inquiries to he made both here and in other parte of the' colony, and in justice to our visitors, and to check, if possible, the circulation of these scandalous reports, we now make the results of these investigations public. Colonel Wyndham, as our Wellington correspondent says, is a soldier and not a courier, and at the conclusion of a long train journey he was no doubt more anxious for the comfort and welfare of his men than desirous of creating a good impassion on the local dignitaries. To accuse him' of manoeuvring to prevent the Mayor from delivering- a. formal address of welcome is as untrue as it is outrageously insulting. In Dunedin and Wellington, where the Colonel and his staff have moved among the people, tney were immediately and unquestionably popular. In Christchurch we •had no opportunity of seeing them out of harness, so to speak, for their military duties occupied them practically throughout their stay. ' As for the reports of severity on board ship—the rumours spake of men kept in irons and in close confinement on' bread and water —they are absurdly untrue. The Britannic itself is simply a troopship, uncomfortable perhaps, but no worse in that respect than the vessels which carried our own contingents to South Africa, and the Imperial soldiers are spared the added discomfort' of having to share the air space with -horses.. We owe an apology to. our visitors for giving the idle statements publicity, but it .is*,,better to kill a lie titan to ignore its existence.