MINISTERS VISIT RANGIOTU CAMP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1452, 28 September 1915, Page 3

MINISTERS VISIT RANGIOTU CAMP.

A GOOD CAMP

The Parliamentary party which visited the two battalions of the Trentham Regiment in camp at Rangiotu on Sunday, included the Prime Minister (the Right Hon. W. F. Massey), the Minister of Defence (the Hon. Jas. Allen), and the Attorney General (the Hon. A. L. Herdman), and their impression of the camp was in the highest degree favourable. The party was very favourably impressed with the healthy appear ance of the men.

“When we came here,’’ said one young officer, “we all had •coughs and colds, and the men were scared and depressed. Now there are fewer than forty men altogether in hospital, and as for their general health and spiiits well, look at them,” The men spoke in terms of praise, and even of affection of their officers, and the officers seemed to be very proud of their men. “They’re good soldiers, and they are going to lie great fighters,” declared one captain, a Dunedin man. “It’s no trouble to manage men who are naturally clean and decent, and who have enlisted because they know it to be their duty. Arc they keen ? I should just say they are. They do the ordinary work of the camp and the drilling quite well, but it is when they are taken out for work under service conditions — attacking over rough country, practising an advance, making entrenchments, and spending the night in the open —that they show real enthusiasm. You should just see them ‘digging themselves in’ with their entrenching tools, or preparing for a bayonet charge. Its worth while leading such men.”