TALL NEW ZEALANDERS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1692, 29 March 1917, Page 4

TALL NEW ZEALANDERS

THEIR LIFE AT THE FRONT. [Continued from Page I.] manners, though, Recording to his men, he is by no means so easy with the Germans as he is with his giiests. The floods had so delayed my journey from the G.H.Q. of the British Armies in the field many, many miles away, that the appointed lunch with Lieutenant-General Sir A. J. Godley, the commander of the corps in which the New Zealanders are now fighting, was impossible, and so we joined General Bussell and his staff —largely composed of names well known in New Zealand —and one or two British officers. There was also present in the mess a member of the French Mission, who spoke English as well as any of ns. It was just as with Birdwood’s or with the Newfoundlanders —most of them took tea with their beef; the Australians — who, from my observations in Fn nee, even exceed the New Zealanders as iea drinkers —must have the digestion of their native emus. • Captain Malcolm Ross, the official war correspondent, was of the party. Here again New Zealand, like Australia, set an example by starting out with an official, trained newspaper correspondent. Even to-day Australia and New Zealand are better informed of the individual deeds of their soldiers than any countries except the German and French. These over-sea people had ca i .ently studied the German War Bo' k and its prescription of the nee i for publicity. As a result, the New Zealand newspapers, the best in our language for a population of a million, keep the people in both islands in close touch with the doings of the New Zealanders in France and in England. I have described headquarters so often that 1 will not indict any further account of the tapping of typewriters, tinkling of telephones, and bendings of man makers. Days in Europe are short in January, and we had to hasten off to meet General Godley. On the way I was fortunate in having a chat with a New Zealand officer, of whose brilliant work I had of course read in Sir Douglas Haig’s desjiatch.es, and whose Gallipoli record will be read by New Zealand children for generations. THE MAORIS. We travelled along roads that were not as in New Zealand —for New Zealand is ever green. Here and there were patches of snow, which on the low lands is only known in the Southern Island —the home of the splendid Alpine chain and the Great Tasman Glacier. It was in the very south of this Southern Island curiously enough, that the Scotsmen originally settled, but, with a twinkle of the eye, I was informed that they are gradually migrating north —almost the only example I have ever known of Scotsmen going steadily in that direction. It should be remembered that the Northern Islands of New Zealand is the warmer and more genial of the two. But though the background was mud, Hood, and Flanders, roads and villages were alive with New Zealanders, each wearing some badge in indication of his home district. It is a Territorial Army —that of New Zealand — and the system by which every man knows everyother man in his company is a thoroughly good one.

One has not been in this /one long before one finds that the fern is the emblem of the Dominion —for it 0 everywhere. Mixed with the Pakehas (Maori for white man) are a number of Maoris. We found out all about the Maoris’ lighting capabilities in IStIO —1880, and that they have not diminished in that respect is proved by the good work they have done in this war, particularly in the Pioneer battalion. They are tail, well built, and about as dark as Sicilians. They have also the line free walk and erect carriage. A number of them avlio were rumbling along the road in a fern-marked motor-lorry turned their heads aJertly to the salute when they saw the red bands of the hats of the General Staff.

Sir Douglas Haig's pride in his over-sea troops —his Canadians, his Australians and Xew Zealanders — his interest in their welfare, his anxiety that the officers they brought with them shoul be promoted as rapidly as possible, is well known. He had just reviewed the New Zealanders, and I had the opportunity

of seeing some thousands of them marshalled in the very village in which he had seen them some days before. He had returned enthusiastic from the review. He told me so, but even then I was not prepared for the size of these handsome fellows.

In a few minutes General Sir A. J. Godly, long known to British readers by his Mafeking record, arrived with some members of his staff. His record in the British Army between the Boer War and the present one is •written large, and since then his work at the Dardanelles has marked him out as a skilful as well as a very courageous officer. His New Zealanders are naturally the apple of his eye. He has seen many of them grow from youth to manhood, for he was the officer chosen to command in New Zealand when this Dominion and Australia, with a foresight not shown by the Mother Country, instituted compulsory military training. AN INITIAL ADVANTAGE. How great an advantage has that heucficient law been to New Zealand in her entry into the mammoth struggle in France. 'Whereas most of our lads from farms and shops had to he taught the very elements of drill and discipline, the Anzacs were almost half soldiers before the war began. The scenes of waistcoated squads drilling in the London parks in the memorable hot days of 1914 were unnecessary “down under.’’ These two of the sister nations were skilled not only in drill but in musketry, and not only in musketry hut in artillery. All this General Godley, who, fittingly enough, is one of the tallest and most distinguished-looking genera Is in Haig’s Army, pointed out with emphasis and satisfaction.

I asked him how his boys stood the. great change in climate. "They are naturally healthy, and their good physique makes them able to stand what they are not used to, and that is the damp. Some of those from the Southern Island,” he said, “know about cold, but none of them know anything of the humid fogs of Flanders.” Like the Canadians, they all miss the sunshine, hut they do not grumble.