Nelson Evening Mail THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1901. DEFENCE DEPARTMENT AGAIN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 141, 21 June 1901, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1901. DEFENCE DEPARTMENT AGAIN.

ment House. The circubista_H.es leaked out by way of nevgpaper paragraphs, and now in consequence Col. Pole Penton, the Commandant, is " performing," and has issued orders that those who gave the information to the papers and those who demonstrated should be made the subject of an inquiry. The " performance " of Col. Pole Penton as recorded by the Press Association telegram published elsewhere was a | well-rehearsed effort, which it is a pity . their Royal Highnesses were not present to behold. If they had been present, they might have been convinced that j the average Imperial officer — Col. Pole Penton is a typically average Imperial officer — is curiously incapable of understanding colonial troops. He has handled " Tommies " all the time he has been a soldier, and he never seems able to realise that in material wellbeing before and after joinm r the ranks the colonial private of the lowest eocial standing is several grades above the men who enter the Imperial infantry regiments. Frequently, before enlistment, the men or youths who form the raw material from which the perfected " Tommy " is made do not know what even fair living means till they have enlisted. They have probably tasted meat-once a week or so, and the coarsest food of the mess is to them a banquet. Yet " Tommy " soons learns to " grouse " about his meals, though he has the good sense drilled into him not to " demonstrate," but to make humble complaint, filtered through corporal to barrack - room sergeant to coloursergeant to orderly officer till it reaches the Colonel. Our colonial lads, on the contrary, have lived well all their lives, even the .poorest of them. Their two or three meat meals a day are a matter of course, and* they are the worst possible subjects in the world for army contractors to play upon. Col. Pole Penton and his kind never seem able to realise this enormous difference between " Tommy " and " Jack," and this is why the Imperial officer as Commandant of Colonial forces has hitherto been a failure, in New Zealand at least. * ■*. » On actual service our lads have willingly roughed it and borne privations as cheerfully as any British soldier. But they have not assembled in Wellington to rough it on poor meat, damp beds, and ill-cooked food ; and, even at the risk of seeming to encourage breach of disciEline, we do not see why the men should e silent victims of the,bungling "tailors" of the Defence Department. It may be admitted that a demonstration with unburied bullock before Government House was unwise and even ungracious. When we entertain Royalty we like to show the Personages everything through rosecoloured spectacles, and to hide defects. But, really, there seems to be no other effective means of reforming the Defence Department. Colonel Pole Penton is extremely angry, not so much because the hungry men " demonstrated," as because some of them -" infernal curs," he calls them in choice and officer-like language used on parade apparently—" gave away " the information to some of the newspapers. An inquiry was furiously ordered by him on the spot - not into the supply of bad meat so tar as we can ascertain, but with a view to the detection of the demonstrators and those who sent the item to. the newspapers. # # * Of course the men did not u let on," and the " inquiry " in this direction is likely to end in Colonel Penton's bluster. But it is hoped that there will be an inquiry all the same — into the stupid mismanagement of everything the clerks or understrappers of the Defence Department take in hand. Heaven help the colony if the same management is in force when an enemy threatens, for some blunder in the Defence Office will probably mix up the date of the landing of the invaders, or by a slip of the pen send the defenders to Timbuctoo .instead of to Westport. As to the present picnic campaign of the Volunteer forces, well, they are not called upon to rough it beyond an ordinarily reasonable point simply because the Defence Deparment does not seem to know how to handle encampments. Of course there has been great demand for all kinds of food supplies in Wellington during the Boyal visit ; but there has been ample time for complete preparation and agreement with mess con* tractors. * # # Colonel Penton would do better to hold an inquiry into the neglect of duty by i bo orderly officers of the day and see that the price of the uneatable food is deducted from the contract, than to fuss and fume because the hungry men of a mes§ tent had an ill-advised " lark," or because the facts found their way into the newspapers. It is ridiculous to parade tbe men and scold them as Colonel Penton seems to have done. He appears to be angry that the Royal eyes might have beheld the meat on poles or read the accoun. of the funeral in the press : But he has gone the right way to work to give the incident far more official prominence than it would otherwise have received, at least during the stay of the Royal visitors, by publicly ordering a regimental inquiry. His " complimentarj language," too, will also probably com. under the Royal notice. The term '' In fernal curs," as applied to colonial Vo lunteers, many of whom hold as good . social position as Co). Pole Penton him self, is also both officer-like and gentle manly from Imperial Tommy's point oi view ; but we rough colonials caanoi help feeling glad that the user is aboui to return to the more congenial atmosphere of the British barrack-room. It might have been necessary for the newspapers to have deprecated the mod funeral demonstration by Volunteers as unwise and undesirable ; but Col. Penton has relieved them of the task by mean, of his jobation on parade.

THE BAD FOOD EPISODE AT WELLING LON, It is well that " allonging and marshonging " for which colonial mihtarism and hohday -keeping are becoming proverbial are drawing to a close, otherwise, with the bungling of the New Zealand Defence Department on every possible occasion, it might be difficult to get Volunteers to leave their homes and assemble on future occasions at a distance for purposes of public demonstrations. The latest unpleasantness caused by the aforesaid bungling has occurred in Wellington, in connection with the food supplied to the Volunteer Camp formed for the Royal Visit. It appears that the meat one day was so bad or so ill- cooked that it cried aloud for burial. The messes who had their meal thus spoilt made a demonstration, some of the details of which have found their way into the newspapers. Various accounts are given of the incident, and apparently the Nelson men, at least the Nelson Garrison Band, took some sort of part in it. Ifc seems that a mock funeral procession was carried out, or that the bad or ill-cooked meat was conveyed on poles past Govern*