PUBLIC AND THE ARMY

Southland Times, Issue 24864, 2 October 1942, Page 5

PUBLIC AND THE ARMY

NEED FOR BEING WELL INFORMED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, October 1. The need for the public to be well informed about Army matters was stressed by Lieutenant-General E. Puttick, officer commanding the New Zealand military forces, when addressing officer cadets who have completed a course of instruction in the anti-aircraft wing of the School of Artillery. He said that although the public was greatly interested in the Army, it had no background or general knowledge of the Army and no basic knowledge of the things that mattered in the Army. It was up to everybody in the Army to make sure there was no real ground for criticism, and he expressed the wish that the newspapers would send their representatives more often into the military camps to see what was being done. Throughout New Zealand, he said, commanders had been instructed to make newspapermen welcome. “One thing I have discovered about the Press of New Zealand is that if you take it into your confidence and tell it about some subject that it cannot publish it will never let you down,” said Lieutenant-General Puttick. He added that any expression of interest and appreciation by the public of the work of the forces was to the good. “We get a tremendous lot of that,” he concluded, “but the trouble is it is not always as audible as adverse criticism.”