A NECESSARY ADJUNCT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 352, 1 April 1910, Page 4

A NECESSARY ADJUNCT.

Under the Territorial scheme New Zealand is to have a nursing corps—if the nurses fall in with the idea. A medical corps, with its nurses, is one of the prime essentials of every army. It may be news to most New Zealanders that an elaborate scheme for the formation of a New Zealand volunteer nursing staff was prepared several years ago, and that the regulations were solemnly printed in general orders. It may also ■be news that only one nurse in New Zealand—Mrs. Gillies—joined the corps, and that she is entered in the Army List as matron, and is, indeed, the only woman in the Dominion who has the distinction of appearing as a member of the Defence Forces. Her military experience—she wears both the Queen's and the King's medals for the South African war—probably induced the conclusion that nurses were as necessary a part of a military scheme as rifles or ammunition. There is no machinery in the regulations creating the Territorial Force which will compel nurses to join the proposed corps; and the inducements are no greater now than they' were several years ago, when Nurse Gillies undertook the duties of matron to a non-existent corps. The history of all campaigns is that women rush to the colors as nurses as soon as war breaks out. .Such women are, to state it plainly, an absolute nuisance, however good their intentions may be, for an undisciplined nurse is a worse circumstance than a sick soldier or an infantry recruit without legs. Tt will be found extremely difficult to form this uroposed nursing corps, simply because New Zealand nurses know nothinsr of the necessities of war: and the honors of service without work during peace time do not bring nurses into the limelisrht. Tn order to create a nurses' Territorial corns it will be necessary, first, to apneal undeniably and permanently to the national ideals of the women. Except under very extraordinary circumstances, women, finite naturally, leave the national ideal to the men. Tt is onlv when men are in dpntrer that women "think Tmnerinltv." New Zealand women will not, be satisfied with red-tane military recognition under a chief of the Medical StPff. Tt. will b« found expedient, in order to recruit Territorial volunteer nur=es to effW a better organisation than that of flip non-existent "forte" of nurses which

passed away with the old system. Tile sentiment and romance of the calling of nursing dies with no sick or wounded t» feed on; and as it is impossible to shed blo»d in order that nurses may "rush to the colors," the only way to create a nursing corps is by obtaining the services of a really enthusiastic leader like Nurse Gillies to handle the whole affair. In the hands of any male member of the present General Staff, endeavors at organising women will be a farce, just as it was before. And the prime, difficulty will be to offer such inducements to nurses to make them spare the necessary time from their civil calling to devote to the military side of the profession.