THE C2 RESERVISTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 November 1917, Page 6

THE C2 RESERVISTS.

THE COMBING OUT. PROCESS.

(From Our Own Correspondent). Wellington Nov. 5. The special Medical Board which is examining the C'2 men dealt with 1455 reservists up to the end of October. Of these SIS were declared fit and 637 unfit The fit men.comprised MB fit, for training in the A camps .(tho ordinary military camps) and 022 men passed as suitable for training in the CI camp at Tauherenikau. The proportion of fit men among the reservists examined in the course of this "combing over" process is regarded as very satisfactory. The CI camp contained !K)3 men on October 27, this number including recruits who had been transferred from the ordinary camps for special training. The camp had then been open for four weeks and the number of men discharged as unfit had been. 35. Transfers of men graded as fit to the A camps had begun, but the process had not proceeded far enough to justify the basing of conclusions on the figures. The indications are that the camp will be abundantly justified by the results it will produce. The medical oflieers report that the improvement of the physique of the recruits in many cases lias been surprisingly rapid.

TREATING MEN TO BE PHYSICALLY FIT. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR i LIVES. !

Wellington. Nov. 5. A medical man who has been visiting the C camp at Tauherenikau, where men are being made fit for set-vice with the Expeditionary Force, returned to Wellington full of enthusiasm concerning what lie had seen. "It will be a thousand pities if the camp is not continued after the war," he said. ''The Defence authorities are teaching some hundreds of men whatit is to be physically lit: for the first time, in their lives, anil I have no hesitation at all, after what I saw out there, in saying, that it would he a good thing if every unfit man in New Zealand were required to spend three months-in the camp. Whether he was needed for service with the forces or not. Fresh air, good food, regular hours and scientifically graduated exercises are doing wonders for the recruits, and I understand that the percentage of men who will become available for active service is substantially higher than was expected originally." It is early clays to be talking of what New Zealand < will do in the matter of defence after the war, but one may hazard a guess that the existing training camps will become part of the machinery of the Territorial system.