CAMP ECONOMIES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 93, 12 January 1918, Page 8

CAMP ECONOMIES

MUCH GOOD WORK DONE

VISIT OF EFFICIENCY BOARD

The Efficiency Board accompanied the Minister of Defence on i>. visit to Featerston Camp 011 Thursday. Thd members of the board had a complete lock round tho camp, and ihe measures taken by tho authorities to eliminate waste were specially brought under their notice. They in turn won: asked to make any suggestions they might think proper for the more economical management of the camp. A suggestion made by one member ot the boaid was that Dr. Might, Professor of Economics at Canterbury College, might l be able to offer valuable suggestions, au.l tho Minister of Defence has asked Dr. Hight to visit the '.'.imp at ins convenience.

It should be understood that quite serious efforts ard being mado in tho camps to economise in food. These have been going 011 for some niynflis, in charge of Mr. Ewen, of the linn of Sargood, Son, and Ewen. Many economies have been effected already which are of use in the camps, and it is hoped that many of them may be of use in civilian lifo after the camps are closed. It was to these operations that the attention of the Efficiency Board was specially directed. "We are studying the subject front the practical and the scientific point of view," said the Minister yesterday. "The Efficiency Board may be able to offer suggestions which wo shall be only too glad to adopt, and if they have any such suggestions to make we should have them. We have time for these things now. In the early days of the camps our chief concern was with tho equipment, training, and dispatch of men. Now we have time to think about economies., and wo are doing it, even 1o such a detail as the peeling of potatoes. We are considering whether wo can save by nion complete centralisation. Wo may find, for instance, that it will be more economical to have all the potatoes peeled at the one place, instead of at the several cook-shops throughout the camps, and to distribute the potatoes after they are peolcd. This applies to meat also. Wc are using such largo quantities of food that even small wastes amount in the aggregate to considerable losses. . . "We liave madi? inquiries and investigations as-to how other concerns usinw large quantities set about the prevention of waste, but up till the present we are convinced that we have nothing to loarn,irom any of them, and that perhaps they have sometning , to learn from the Defence Department.'