RETURN OF COLONEL RHODES.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 April 1916, Page 6

RETURN OF COLONEL RHODES.

HIS VISIT TO EGYPT THE MAILS QUESTION. (Frop Our Own Correspondent), Wellington, Airil 24. Lieutenant-Colonel R. H. Rhodes, wlio went to Egypt last year on a mission for the Government, returned to Wellington by the Moeraki to-day. It will be remembered that after the'formation of the National Goiernment LieutenantColonel Rhodes was asked to visit Egypt and Malta and make full enquiry concerning the many complaints in hospital and postal arrangements as they affected the New Zealand troopi. During his visit to the war area lie pursued his enquiries in Egypt, Malta and Leninos, and also paid a visit to the trenches on Galipoli prior to the evacuation. His stay was prolonged by an attack of illness.

When. i,een by your correspondent, Lieut.-Colonel Rhodes said that his impressions regarding the hospital and postal arrangements had been given fairly fully in letters to the Minister for Defence. Most of these letters had been published in the newspapers of the Dominion, and he had little to add to them. It w;fe true that the hospitals and the postal staff had been subjected to a very severe strain in the early days of the Gallipoli campaign, when the casualties were severe, the conditions were strange and the distribution of officers and men was uncertain. It was not surprising that certain difficulties had been experienced at that period. But he had not found that there had been carelessness or inefficiency at any point. His enquiries had convinced him that everybody had worked with .a wilil, and that there had been a steady improvement in Jhe services as the staffs adjusted themselves and acquired experience. •

It had been said in New Zealand that enormous quantities of unsorted mail matter had accumulated at the New Zealand base at He could give that statement a definite denial, He found 110 such accumulation. During those early days, when the conditions were peculiarly difficult, the postal staff had been compelled to make use of the services of any men available, and delays might have occurred even without the element of confusion added by the movement of large bodies "of sick and wounded men from the front to the hospitals, and from one hospital to another. But there had been no lack of effort at any point.