INFORMATION WANTED.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1915, Page 2

INFORMATION WANTED.

jSEW ZEAL ANDERS AT TUB DARDANELLES. -

SEOOND-lUND REPORTS

Discussing the question of the supply of news fir in Gallipoli Peninsula- by the official correspondent of the New' Zealand Government, Saturday's Christchurch s Evening News says:— It is s only necessary to mention sr me filings which we hare had from Australian or private sources, of New Zealanders, and which we should have had fr< in official correspondence sources, to point cut the failure of our present arrangements. For instance, fiom a Melbourne correspondent yesterday w<> published, quite incidentally and casually, an intiir-.ation and description of where and how the New Zealand, batteries are i-ssisting French and British artillery, and distinguishing themselves. The only accounts w c have had of the Maori exDloits haw been from Mr Ashme.'id" Bartlett and the Austialians. They and General Hamilton all told us of the Maori force generally being in action, and the casualty' lists support this. The New Zeah-nd official correspondent's account says that "two platoons" of the

Maoris were in action, one attached to each of the white divisions, the rest being in reserve. Can this possibly be consistent with the apparent facts f1 Or is it like the account sent cut by the New Zealand Government official of . the,- death of Captain Wilding in Gallipoli, even after everyone knew that he was never, rear Gallipoli? , ■ -■■:-■:'■■ Again, it is generally known mat after the ,New Zealanders took trenches and held them for two days in the big offensive, Kitchener's men who relieved them badly failed to hold them, and the New Zealanders had to go tack androtake ihem, suffering their Heavy - losses in so doing. General Godley himself -gives a certain reference to this incident. Possibly it is the sort of thing that one night think liable'to be censored, but wo" have no word,.' of it in the New Zealand coriespondence and plenty of it in private letters which passed the censor We i;nderstand that the Kitchener men were. bushed" in the Suvla Bay night, f fight, and consequently did notu*get as far as they v..ere expected to.- do, involving our men giving up a valuable position whi«h they had won at the cost of much Llcod. Putting aside the tact Whether the Censor would have passed that in a correspondence letter, he ceitainly would h.ve passed what appears to have teen the consequence — that Guide Young of Mount Cook, Corporal Burns, of Christchurch, and four othei New Zealanders and several Australians were specially selected to .'become guides and rnipors to the British force. We should not have been left to a private letter to Itarn of thir, compliment to the New Zealanders, nor of an Australian letter to learn how our musketry instructors were taken for the British and Australians; nor for the fact revealed in a private letter we publish to-day that in consequence of tho fine trench work of;,the. New Zealanders British engineer officers were attached to them to gain.experience. We are svre that if the suggestion we i>iake, of utilising v corps of practical secior- and jrnior reporters, now with tho troops x as combatants, were adopted by General Godley at the. re quest of the Government, and that at least two of the. Maori Contingent whose \ivid letters have been published were added to the corps, we would have no further complaint? as to lack of news or as to our men dying in darkness. And there would be io additional expense to a much worried exchequer.