DEFENCE AFFAIRS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 187, 27 April 1918, Page 8

DEFENCE AFFAIRS

I STORES PERIOD OF TRAINING ; : SOME SUGGESTIONS I The Defence Expenditure Commission ' continued the hearing of evidence yester- ; day. Brigadier-General Sir Robert An- '. derson presided. ' i Major Thomas M'Cristell, Director of i- Equipment and Ordnance Stores for the ■ past two years, said that he had been ! thirteen years in ths Imperial Army, five years in the.New Zealand Volunteer • : Force, and nine and a half years on the New Zealand Permanent Staff. He justified at some length the regulations com- '. pelling officers at outside units to requisi- :. tion for supplies on varying forms. He : said, in effect, that if one form only '■ were used there would be less economy, [.■' and less efficiency. If all the indenting officer had to do was to submit a list of ; what he required the lists would be fro- !■■ quent and voluminous. His experience '; during two years in his present .position : had been that if all. that the indenting officer had to do was to fill up a form of what he wanted and to sign it, all sorts of articles which were not necessary would : be'demanded without Te K ard to the ex- , pense incurred. - That friction should be the result of compelling these foims to ■ ; be used could not in truth be said, to. bo ; duo to the regulations ■ compelling-their :• use. but to the limited outlook oHbe individual compiling Hi 3' indent. ' He con- ! sidered an intelligent man, with previous ' ■■■. military experience, could be trained to ; carry out.the duties, of/quartermaster- >' -sergeant in a non-technical unit with about six months' training In tne A.0.D., ■ provided he were industrious, and lefer- ' »ed to regulations when in doubt. He ' said that the system of centralisation in ' Wellington had been intended to bo. tem- . porary, but circumstances arose which : had prevented decentralisation this year. : The demands from units were useless, . and supplies bad to be forwarded on esti- ! mates, of necessities by the Ordnance Dei partment. An advantage in favour of •.' centralisation-was that of being able to : buy large quantities of stores at the lowi est possible price. The department ' bought washing-soda at £8 10s. per ton, • and the present price was .£2O per ton, ' an increase of 135 per cent. The Do. I partment had made'this contract in June, ! 1917,' and the supplies in hand and to come'would last until the end of Novom- ! ber next. He mentioned the request of : the Auckland District Office for a cyclostyle, accompanied with a recommendation that a machine be purchased from ' the Remington Agency in Auckland at £32. Following eta upon this latter j came a second, stating that it was found that the price was a reduction of i&V : : His office wrote to 'Auckland Dis- [ trict Office that-the proper price of the : machine was £16, and subsequently- the 'machine was supplied by the Rem- ■ ington Agency at this price.. The ' Auckland Office had recommended the , purchase at ,£32. Good results had fol- ,'■ lowed in countless instances upon the • ' forwarding of quotations to Wellington for perusal. Delays in the supply of - trifling office requirements to other dis- ' tricts were due mostly, to the failure of ' indenting officers to comply with the regulations. Delays had occurred in the ;■ Ordnance Department, but these were due to individual fnilurgs, and not to fault in the system. Instances of deiny ought to be draw.n to his notice by in- ■ denting officers, and then action could be . taken to discipline those responsible for '!'. delay. Referring to military boots he i - said 'that 25,299 pairs of boots were repaired in the Department's' workshop'at ;'. Wellington from January 1, 1917, to February' 28, 1918—a" period of fourteen I months. The cost per pair was 55., or ■ about Is. per pair less than the cost of similar repairs in an outside shop. Estimating the saving at Is. per pair, the ; sum of 193. had been saved. Uni-_ < form clothing discarded .by men sent out" of camp was now cleaned and renewed, and the reissued clothing had about twothirds of the life value, of new clothes. ! Between June, 1917, and, April-4, .1918, ': the amount saved: was .£23,618. Major ' M'Cristell was most emphatic in ' his I', declaration that there should be no elas- ' ticity in regulations dealing with stores ■or money. If regulations were ansatis- ,: factory they should be amended, but if i there were "elasticity" as to the observance of the regulations, loss to the coan- ; try would Tesult, as it had invariably '■- Tesulted when "elasticity" had been al- !' lowed in the past. As.an instance, in ! connection with the laundering of cloth- ; ing for ! prisoners of war at Motuihi Island, a certain amount of elasticity was allowed to the_C.O. with regard to this matter, with the result that the Department was paying no less than 3s. p9r ; week per head for laundering clothes, : running the Department into an ■ expenditure of i! 1100 before witness first visit- ; ed Auckland after taking up his present "'duties.

Witness said that it was proposed to issue all kit to N.Z.E.F. officers and abolish the money allowance of ,£25. All articles * not supplied in New Zealand would be issued at the base. • General Anderson suggested that our officers would be at a disadvantage by comparison with officers in British units. ■ Witness said that General Richardson had cabled some time ago that he considered the New Zealand issue of officers' clothing compared favourably with other clothing. The chairman: Of course, the quality of the material is simply gorgeous. The New. Zealand Forces are better equipped ' than any other. He did not agree, however,' that ready-to-wear clothes would 'be as smart in appearance as made-to-measure clothing. ' . Colonel G. J. Smith, who has had ex- . perience in New Zealand in:administrative positions, and also abroad with tho N.Z.E.F. at Sling Camp, was asked to give the commission his views on fj'e training for New Zealand soidiers. He said that it 6eemed to him that better work could be-done in New Zealand if the two camps were concentrated into one. : If Trentham must be kept goin°, he would say that the infantry should be concentrated at Featherston end the other arms at Trentham. The cost of transporting the men was so high that the expenditure on a new rifle range would be saved in three months. He thought too much time was lost in concentrating the men when they came into camp. If the camps were eoncentriited the concentration ought to be done in two days,, instead of a week. Ho believed we were hot getting value for money for training in New Zealand. A lot of time was wasted. Tho authority was. too much centralised, and he was bothered with matters of detail. He was sure that if authority were divided, and this battalion ,system of organisation adopted, it would produce greater efficiency. It would relieved Headquarters of detail and make supervision easier and more thorough. It would also save time in coijfentratfion, and 6ave money thereby. Too much leave' was granted in the training period, and tho instruction was interrupted in this way. In Sling Camp no leave was granted until training was completed. , He would urge ten weeks' training here,'with two weeks' J leave before embarkation. ' After that the men couM have a finishing course in England.of four weeks, and then they would be fit for France. He ndvocat- ' ed ten weeks' training here becauso of the' food problem in England, and the danger of the men being rushed across to France in case of emergency, with insufficient training. But the ten weeks would have to bo spent in actual work. He was aware that parents wished their sons to have leave to sen their relatives, and he was aware that there were politi- , cal reasons for allowing the leave. In the period of training he thougnt the men should have leave from Saturday at midday until Sunday night. There were do Sunday trains, but it would be cheaper to run a train than to loso a day's training, for this was involved in letting the men return on Monday. There was some wikne-'s in the trebling here, reinforcements arrived at Sling short of training in musketry. At Sling men were always fully trained in musketry, and never' allowed to go across to France until they" could shoot." It to himi too, that the number of men employed at the camps here was unnecessarily large, and he was puzzled to understand how it beqamo necessary, as it was, to take men off training in order to do fatigues. The battalion system seemed to be the solution of the matter. He said he would refer to medical mat-

ters with some diffidence. A number of the men in the reinforcements were thrown out on medical examination the day after they arrived, and thrown out as unfit to begin training. One man of whom he had knowledge was thrown out because of an ununited fracture of the arm. How he got away from New Zealand was a mystery. Ho would urge more intensive training here, and more strict medical examination on the eve of departure. There were men sent out from England after being fully trained as instructors in the best English schools. When these men came here they were put on probation to see if they were good enough. This destroyed efficiency, because it made the men discontented. Some quarter-masters-sergeant had been sent from Sling to New Zealand, but on arrival here they were paraded, and told they must return by the first. transport, as they were not required here. In England the instructors were changed every six months, and if that was necessary in England it was much more necessary here.