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Observer, Volume XXXV, Issue 44, 10 July 1915, Page 23

With the magnificent dash characteristic of politicians it is decided to cure wet feet, measles, pneumonia, sore, throat, coughs, influ- • enza and all other allied complaints at Trentham with a Royal Commission. It will cheer the relatives of dead soldiers up a great deal to be told by a Royal Commission that Trentham is the worst place in New Zealand (bar Waikumete cemetery) to camp in. . It's absolutely appalling that all parties in Parliament welcome any means that will put off Action. In the meantime Trentham, at the worst possible time of the year, will continue to claim victims. A solemn judge and some equally solemn stipendiary amateurs

will thrash Trenthan matters out, put the drains and water supply and wet tents and hutments through a sieve, and find out precisely what everybody now knows about Trenthan.

Writer knows Trentham from railway to hills. It is the place where 700 infatuated) rifle shots used to spend ten days sniffing and shooting clothed in oilskins and lying on waterproof sheets. It is an abominable plain, incapable of being made comfortable. It would be less costly to send recruits straight to the war (as in the days of the Crimea), than to kill them with pneumonia. And no fat-headed official will be hanged.