UNRULY SOLDIERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15482, 13 December 1913, Page 4

UNRULY SOLDIERY.

RIOTING FOR LIQUOR. WAY BLOCKED BY BAYONETS. [FROM Ot'U OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Sydney, December 6. One of the most remarkable military camps yet held in Australia is that of the Fifth Infantry Brigade (New South Wales), which is being concluded to-day at Liverpool. It has been a "dry" camp. The sale of intoxicants was not allowed within the camp, and their introduction was forbidden. The camping site is close to the town of Liverpool, and mainly in order to make the liquor prohibition effective the town was declared out of bounds, and no one was allowed to go from the camp into the town unless equipped with a special permit. A large section of the young soldiers (some of them are barely 18 years of age), resented this restriction. A mob of them tried on Saturday evening to gel to the town, but they were blocked at the bridge over the St. George's River by a guard stationed on the bridge. The guard was hustled, and was having a bad time when reinforcements were hurried along in the form of a relief party with fixed bayonets. The umJy crowd carat into close contact with the armed party, and at the time of the highest tension some of the bayonets were levelled to the charge position, but at the crucial moment an officer shouted. " For God's sake put up those bayonets." On the following day Sunday, a strong armed guard, stationed with fixed bayonets on the bridge, was confronted for four hours by a mob which sought to break through. Civilians, including women, who had occasion to 20 through the mob to get to or away from the camp, were roughly handled. Coarse jeers and abuse were directed at the guard and at the policemen from Liverpool on duty at the bridge. At sundown stones were showered at the defenders of the bridge, and a soldier and a police constable were injured. But the armed guard, which must have felt, intensely provoked to give the rioters a tasto of cold steel, stood steady and firm. At one point the disorderly crowd numbered about six hundred, though only a portion took an active part in the rushes, stonethrowing and use of offensive or disgusting language. Three of the trainees were arrested by the police, and this had a steadying effect on the remainder. On Monday there was no crowd at the bridge. The brigadier, Colonel Cook, had made up his mind to take the "go 1 ' out of the unruly trainees. The whole brigade was marched out into the country early onMonday morning, and kept at fatiguing marches in a very trying heat on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The water supply ran short, and the supply of provisions was not adequate. When the brigade returned to camp on Wednesday evening after haying had to bivouac in the open for two nights, it was a very tired, dirty, and generally limp brigade. Naturally the officers in the camp, when questioned by headquarters, said the newspaper accounts of the trouble were grossly exaggerated, and the official story of the "gruelling given to the whole brigade on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday was also very mild. But it is nevertheless true that there was serious disorder at the camp, and that drastic punishment followed, to the groat discomfort ot the innocent as well as tho guilty.