GETTING NEWS

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9093, 12 July 1915, Page 9

GETTING NEWS

EXPERIENCE OF MEMBER OF

PARLIAMENT.

EXTRA ORDINARY DELAY

“This morning I received a telegram from my district asking me to make inquiries regarding a young soldier who was reported to be ill,” said Mr J. McCombs, member for Lyttelton, last evening. “I rang up every hospital in Wellington, but could get no nows of him. I could not ring up the Trentham hospital, because the Upper Hutt exchange was closed. I rang up the Trentham camp, and they promised to send a message to the hospital—but I got no information. “After a great deal of trouble, 1 managed to get into communication with somebody in authority and state who I was and what I wanted. I was told that the trooper was doing nicely, or something of that sort. It was a ready-made reply that could not carry conviction to anybody. So 1 asked for a list of all tho hospitals "'hero he might be, in order that I might take a taxi and make the round until I found my man. I could not get the list without delay. “Eventually an officer with whom I communicated by telephone promised courteously to see what could be done. The telegraph office had closed at 5.30 p.m. for the day, but I had arranged to get a message through, and some lime after 7 p.m. a telegram containing the information I had been asking for was dispatched. It stated where the soldier was, what was the matter with him, and how he was progressing. But why should it have taken me the best part of a day to get a simple question answered about a sick trooper? Is that the best the Defence organisation can do?”