"NOT WANTED ON THE VOYAGE."

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 815, 11 February 1916, Page 8

"NOT WANTED ON THE VOYAGE."

Sick Soldiers and Snobbish Passengers. WHEN our soldiers are leaving for the front they are heroes. When "the troopship's on the tide," as Kipling puts it, nothing too complimentary can be said of Tommy Atkins. But when a party of wounded and invalid soldiers find themselves on board an ocean liner, the "salooners" put tip their selfish backs if the men who have

been risking their lives for their country dare to go as much as a foot or two outside their quarters. That is the sort of thing which is said to have happened on the New Zealand Shipping Company's steamer, the Rotorua. on her last voyage out from the Old Country, and the fact that' it did happen reflects no credit upon either the. protesting passengers or the officers of the vessel. Owing to the protests of the passengers, the invalided soldiers on board were, we read, "kept in a very restricted space." In future the Government ought to insist upon sick and wounded soldiers being allowed unrestricted liberty to use the promenade and other decks. The soldier, more particularly the wounded soldier, deserves and should receive first consideration in these days of war. The sort of saloon passenger, who runs to the purser with a complaint every time his own particular deck-chair is shifted an inch or two out of its customary posi- . tion, is not worth troubling about when the comfort and convenience of a wounded soldier is in question.