THE KOWAI CAMP.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 76, 6 May 1914, Page 6

THE KOWAI CAMP.

EFFECT ON THE MEN.

THE PERMANENT BARRACKS SCHEME. Specially written for THE SUN. «_ Three thousand men in camp. The Army Service Corps numbers them by their three thousand stomachs, the chaplains by their souls, and the Headquarters' Staff by platoons, regiments, squadrons, or brigades, as the case may be.

Oh Friday, April 24, three thousand Territorials at Kowai listened to the bugles blowing "Lights out," obeyed the call, and rolled their blankets round them preparatory to sleep. During the afternoon and evening they had orowled unrestrainedly. The tucker was rotten, they said expressively. They wanted above all to be properly fed, and they considered they had not been. • Further, they considered they had been made to do work which they considered should have been done by the advance party. Therefore they growled. A week later, on the following Friday evening, these same men gathered in the deserted lines after they had struck their tents. They cheered their ser-geant-majors, their officers, the staff, and each other intermittently for the space of an hour. Then they marched over and cheered the Y.M.C.A., the C.E.M.S., and the Salvation Army authorities in charge of the recreation tents. CHANGED IDEAS. The change was not a sudden one. For about live days out of the seven it had rained hard, and the P.M.0., acting on the theory that the lancet is mightier than the sword, had counselled the O.C.D. and a few more of those people who are in charge of the destinies of our Tommy Atkins, that the men should not drill iu the rain. Tor the first two days they preferred to sit in their tents, but inaction quickly palled, and a strange desire to work took hold on them.

At a camp like Kowai it is difficult to see why this happens, but presumably it is because the men find that things are not as they seemed. They have expected the dull routine of rifle exercises; the marching and wheeling and marking time on the parade ground; the "slope arms," "order aims," and monotonous "as you were." Instead, they were agreeably surprised to find that they were treated as individuals with brains, and not as units of companies with feet only. They were given distance-judging,' visual training, musketry class-firing, and all the hundred and one interesting exercises of a big military camp. Gradually a sense of esprit de corps arose under the khaki tunics, and manifested itself everywhere. On the parade grouud the ranks stiffened. In the tents the gear and impedimenta was neatly tidied up and stowed away. In manoeuvres the men threw themselves into the work with a dash that surprised their instructors. When the weather became quite unbearable, and the tents leaked, and bedding became wet, this spirit manifested itself more than ever.

Several instances of individual keenness might be worth quoting. One man, picked out by the eagle eye of the P.M.0., was examined, and told that he had a bad cold and must go home. He demurred, but finally packed up and went to the railway siding, timing himself to reach there just five minutes after the train had left. Then he came back, reported that he had missed the train, and remained on. This is a typical instance of the enthusiasm shown by all hands. Another man, a •non-commissioned officer, was ordered home, and perforce had to go. From Christchurch he wrote his sergeant-major, informing him that his annual fortnight's holiday was due, and asking whether he could take it in the casual camp following the one he had just left. He knew, he stated, that he would not receive pay for this extra time, but he wished to come all the same. MEN LIKE TRAINING. ' Anti-militarists and others take notice! These ground-down youths, conscripts in training, actually enjoyed their ten days or fortnight's camp. There was the usual allowance of growlers, of. course, but beyond these the large majority of men enjoyed their training. And why should they not enjoy it? They are given a holiday at the ' Government's expense; they wear the Government's clothes; are fed by the Government. They are not worked

hard, and the work that they have to do is such that any sane youth would enjoy. Moreover, they are paid for lost time, and leave camp with money in their pockets. The late camp has undoubtedly been .of,great value. Not only have the men j|ej|jk*trained under what closely approximates to service conditions, but they have also shown that" they can make light of bad weather and the many inconveniences attendant upon it. The fact remains that it was held too late, and although useful, it would have been more useful in fine weather.

It has been proposed / that these camps, should be abandoned, and that rjennanent huts or barracks should "be erected where the men could be trained all the year round. This idea may have much to commend it, but from the point of view of the value of the training there can be no comparison. Training under canvas is infinitely more valuable than in tin-huts. The barrackstrained soldier;,of the regular British forces brings a wonderful degree of courage, endurance, and devotion into his actual fighting. As a fighting man he would be hard to better. It is in the big camp, the bivouac, or the trenches that he fails to justify himself. CAMPS MORE VALUABLE.

Those who know best, anil one can quote Lord Kitchener and Lord Roberts, say that the barrack trained soldier does not know how to look after himself in the field. When faced with the stern realities of war his health fails, and the full field hospitals in the South African war bore ample testimony to this fact. When the real thing comes along, the little tin huts and barracks must be left far behind, and each man, must, to a very great extent, be able to care for himself. The difference between the barracktrained soldier and the man trained as nearly under service conditions as possible is very apparent. The former can never learn the routine of camp, and field training in the lecture room. Sanitation, transport, commissariat, all have to be studied, by the modern soldiei', and there is an increasing tendency to teach the young ranker not only that he must do certain things, but also why he must do them. Again there is the moral training resultant from, even, a short stay in camp. Barrack training is very little different from the ordinary house-life of the average youth, and the comforts are less. In a bell-tent with eight men it is different, and a short period of training under these conditions tends to make a man more self-reliant and less selfish. Taking it by and large, the Kowai Camp was a triumph for the supporters of the Defence Act, and a rebuff . to it* antagonists. " ■-,<...-. N. R