CAMP AT FEATHERSTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16254, 13 June 1916, Page 9

CAMP AT FEATHERSTON.

IMPROVEMENTS EFFECTED.

PRECAUTIONS AGAINST DISEASE.

[BT TELEGRAPH.—SPECIAL

Wellington. Monday. The suggestion was conveyed by a question asked in the House of Representatives last week by Mr. C- H. Poole (Auckland West) that the convaa camp at Featherston was in an uninhabitable condition. Mr. Poole said it had been reported to him that the men were up to their knees in mud, and that Major Macdonald had stated that the camp was not fit. to live in.

" Major Macdonald denies having made any such statement," said the Hon. James Allen, Minister for Defence, this evening. "I visited the camp myself on Sunday, and it looked very well indeed. All tents are surrounded by plots of ground marked out by stone borders, and nobody is allowed to walk on these plots, so that the ground immediately surrounding tents can never get muddy. All the tents are floored. In wet weather there must be a certain amount of mud, but on that strong ground it can never be very bad. 'There was considerable mud round the cook-houses and diningrooms, but we are getting over this trouble by having all the paths gravelled and by laying a tramline to obviate the necessity for so much heavy traffic into the camp. We are also making a footpath along the main road, which often was very muddy, to give men a drv way out of camp. Some drainage work is also being done. . *' I do not think it is possible for anv epidemic at either camp to become at all serious this winter. Immediately a case of infectious disease occurs all who have been in contact with the patient are isolated We had a few cases of scarlet fever recently, but all contacts were isolated- The disease has not spread. You cannot prevent outbreaks of measles. Men bring the infection into camp with them very often, but as soon as a case occurs we isolate contact*. I have absolute confidence in the effectiveness of the camp organisation—medical and otherwise— prevent a serious development of an Epidemic.