"OTHER MATTERS"—IN ANOTHER ASPECT.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1915, Page 8

"OTHER MATTERS"—IN ANOTHER ASPECT.

To the Editor. ■jiv, —ln your issue of Saturday "Puzzled" lias drawn attention to another aspect of this liquor question. He gives the quantities of wine, spirits, and beer that are to be supplied to the hospital ship Marama. The quantity is enormous, and we are told that it is in accordance with Army regulations. Now, these Army regulations arc, we may presume, made by the Army Council, on which the Army doctors have no place: hence we see clearly that the regulations are made by the officers on old Army traditions, and without reference to the Army Medical Department who have the control of hospitals in all other, directions. The enormity of that very large order for the hospital siiip will \»e seen best by a comparison with the Xew Plymouth hospital, which is reckoned as among the best in tl.e Dominion, so far as management is. concerned. We. know what was .impended in that institution during the .year Hiding 31st March, IMS, and taking that a,s a basis and ''Puzzled's" statem-tit (which is quite correct) of the quantity ordered far the hospital ship, ii works out that the ship will carry enousrii wir.ts and spirits to serve th:> hospital for 363 years, or for 203,370 patients. I have not included the 900 half-pints of stout in the above, because, perhaps, the Army regulations include stout as liquid food; if that were included there would

be enough for our hospital-for 393 years or to "doctor" 278,244 patients. *Now this ia startling, and it leaves us with this thought that either our hospital management has cruelly, heartlessly withheld from our patients necessary comforts—and no one belives that—or the money spent on liquors for the ship is extravagant, wasteful, and the result of ignorance—and the latter is what most people believe,—l am, etc., GEO. H. MAUNDER, j New Plymouth, Nov. 15, 1915. \ To the Editor. Sir, "Puzzled" enumerates the supply of alcohol in its various forms to the" hospital ship Marama. He goes on to say, ''lf necessary to 9ick and wounded" men, why not in the trenches? Surely if it helps to cure it will help to prevent sickness." Had "Puzzled" enquired further, he would have found that among supplies to the hospital ship that are valuaable remedies—though also poisonssuch drugs as morphia, cocaine, strychnine and so forth. By the same process of reasoning does "Puzzled" contend of these, "If necessary to sick and wounded men, why not in the trenches, etc., and, if not, why not?" Plea.se, "Puzzled?"—l am, etc., CLEAR-HEADED. Fitzroy, Nov. 15, 1915,