THE CASUALTY LISTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15949, 21 June 1915, Page 6

THE CASUALTY LISTS.

The compilation by one of the chaplains with the New Zealand force of a list of the wounded in the various hospitals in Egypt gives an indication of one of the many services that might be rendered to our soldiers and their relatives by the establishment at Alexandria of a New Zealand bureau on tie lines suggested in Saturday's Herald. By May 6— about a week after- the first of the wounded men had landed in Egypt— tho Rev. C. J. Bush King had collected from the hospitals the names of 216 wounded New Zealandcrs. This list, which was posted to Dunedin, gives the address of each soldier included by stating the name of the hospital in which ho was being nursed. About the same date the cabled casualty lists were beginning to arrive in New Zealand, but it was a month later before hospital lists were received. In the interval many parents had made fruitless efforts to communicate with their wounded sons. Mr. Bush King's work was entirely unofficial; had he been assisting a Government bureau, his list, which would have been welcome news to many New Zealanders early in May, could have been cabled and circulated for general information. If the cause cf the confusion in the casualty lists has been the pressure of work on the military and hospital staffs, there is all the more reason why that pressure should be relieved, and the future" comfort of the wounded assured by the appointment of a capable Government officer to establish a i war service bureau.