KILLING SOLDIERS.

Observer, Volume XXXV, Issue 44, 10 July 1915, Page 3

KILLING SOLDIERS.

The Trentham Camp

SOLDIERS who enlist to fight for the King do not anticipate the necessity of fighting King Death at Trentham. The mobilisation camp at Trentham is proved to be infected with the disease of measles. Hundreds of soldiers have been infected in that camp and- many i have died -from pneumoniia supervening on this comparatively simple

and infantile complaint. Remember, in thinking of this immensely serious matter that every soldier serving at Trentham has passed a medical test and is supposed to be physically able to resist common complaints. It is exceedingly sad for mothers and fathers who give their sons in the expectation that they will aid in the Great Task, should have to weep over the grave of a soldier killed by measles. One sometimes wonders if the Minister is all soldier or mostly politician. One remark suffices: "Some of the men had complained to him also that the huts were draughty. This would have been put right long ago, but there had' been so much to do at Trentham. The carpenters had been putting in all their time erecting more huts, and no more carpenters could be got, but the men themselves could get over this difficulty, as some of them had done, if they had any initiative." A soldier does as he is told. If Colonel Allem or Colonel Anybody-else ordered fatigue parties to work on this behalf the soldiers would have done it, and the point is missed, of course. Measles is a specific disease and hasn't anything to do with "initiation" or lack of it. You don't keep measles away by keeping draughts away. Measles has been in Trentham since the main force was quartered there.

The daily press, as usual, obscures the real issue. On the same day that 7 deaths are reported for a week, the deaths are mentioned as an apparently minor matter. What IS important is the headlines: "Improvements in Hand." "Minister's Activity." The only improvement that is of any service in this emergency is to stamp out disease at Trentham. It is now claimed as a sort of military virtue "that no cases of measles are treated at the camp." It doesn't matter. What matters is that the oases of measles arose in the camp ; that more cases of measles will arise in the camp, and that the specific disease of measles shouldl have been fought to a standstill at the camp when, the first case occurred in the camp. Wihen Colonel Allen iside tracks about boots and clothes and trenches he is merely being a politician. He may reduce the possibility of soldiers being susceptible to measles with boots and clothes, but he doesn't kill the existing disease. All that concerns the authoriiiy at Trentham is to kill measles that is killing soldiers. It is bad business to let soldiers die who are potential slayers of Germans, Turks, or Austrians. If the military authorities can't root out specific disease in Trentham the military authorities should root out Trentham. The burning of every building at Trentham is not too big a price to pay to save the life of any single soldier —a potential victim to the disease that.Trentham still harbours.

On service the men now at Trentham or fifty times that number will be called upon to take new ground with the greatest suddenness. An army or part of it will be established on Tuesday evening, many miles from the spot in which it was comfortable on Tuesday morning. The army leaves a lot of microbe® behind it when it moves— and takes some with it. Still the move is all on the side of health. One does not hesitate to say that if it is impossible for medical science to stamp out the disease where it lurks Trentham shoukli be abandoned. The disease has been there for eight months and it is there now. New Zealand is a large place. Even if the men were sent on trek with its supply column the situation would be relieved. It would be better for soldiers to sleep under the lee of a wire fence than in a camp known to be infected' and which it seems impossible to cleanse. In every oase a fixed camp is a bad camp and the soldier is the victim of the administration which demands centralisation for its own convenience. The first and most important duty of the military administration on every occasion is to> keep the health of the troops up to the highest pos-

Bible standard. If it can't do it at Trentham it should abandon Trentham, even if it has to do so in marching order with two days' rations. As mobility is a sine qua non the establishment and ne-establish-ment of new camps would be of military importance and utility. One

thing of which this writer "at least is certain. Trentham camp should be burnt. '.: You. can't cure disease with boots or blankets, or keeping out draughts, or digging new la-* trines. Give Trentham a rest and let the microbes die instead' of the soldiers. "''-.-•