THE PARIHAKA CAMPAIGN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 4119, 24 August 1882, Page 2

THE PARIHAKA CAMPAIGN.

The following facts, which the Wellington correspondent of the Auckland Herald says were told to him by a member of the Public Petitions Committee, adds another phrase to a famous chapter in our colonial history. Dr. Diver, of Wellington, had a petition before the committee, claiming £79, being the total sum of the rate of ss. a head for the volunteers he medically examined in Wellington prior to the departure for Parihaka. Dr. Diver was asked to examine by the commanding officers of the different corps, who told him they had the authority of the Government to do so. He claimed only ss. a head for the examination instead of the usual guinea, the former sum being the amount paid to examine Armed Constabulary men. This he stated in evidence before the committee, and adds that he did not claim the £79 for any monetary reason, his practice being worth £3,000 a year, but merely to sustain the honour of the profession. He also showed the necessity of the examination, by stating that there were a number of men whom he rejected as unfit to go, who, though they were fine strong looking men, yet had extensive disease of the heart, and if they had gone, on the occurrence of the least excitement, would have been liable to drop dead, in which case, as they would have died when on active service, their families would have been entitled to pensions. The Government refused the doctor's claim as not having authorised the service, so he petitioned the House, and the report of the committee was decidedly against it. But the most interesting fact remains to be told. The doctor stated in evidence that he accompanied one of the Wellington corps to the campaign, being its honorary surgeon, and the surgeons of several other corps did the same. He had previously ordered a medicine chest from some wholesale chemist here, but it did not reach Opunake till just as they were coming back. His instruments he took with him, but the Government did not recognise any of the volunteer doctors who went up, and they were not placed on the strength, with one exception, Dr. Boor, an assistant surgeon from Nelson, who was placed in charge of the whole 1200 men assembled. Dr. Diver added that Dr. Boor's whole stock of medicines consisted of a pound of salts, which he got from a local storekeeper. This he was told by Dr Boor himself. The result was, he had to, disguise the salts in all kinds of ways, to get the men to take them for their various ailments, to keep them efficient and capable of going to the front. The medicine chest of the A.Cforce was eight miles away. Dr. Diver admitted, in reply to Mr. Turnbull, that but for the foresight of Dr. Boor they would not have had even the salts, and then Mr. Turnbull asked if the taking of salts under such circumstances was not more calculated to make men go not to the front but in the opposite direction. Dr. Diver, amid much laughter, admitted that it would. If there had happened to have been an engagement, the after consequences would have been simply murder, for though the several surgeons present would have set to work unauthorised, yet there were no hospital tents or any other appliances whatever, and men must have bled to death for want of proper attendance. Even for the cases of sunstroke that occurred, there was no accommodation for treatment. Dr. Diver said that with the same number of regular forces, there would have been about eight surgeons, with all necessary ambulance appliances. Despite the " Bob Sawyer" (late Nockemorf) element in the tale, the facts give 1 an additional reason for congratulation that the Parihaka campaign was a bloodless one.