Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1942. STANDARDS IN CAMPS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 May 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1942. STANDARDS IN CAMPS.

was made recently of complaints awakened by the failure of the authorities concerned to provide, in military camps in this part of the Dominion, reasonable facilities for bathing and for the drying of clothes. No particular notice appears to have been taken of these complaints, but the matter assuredly cannot end there. As information stands, the conditions in. district camps generally are extremely bad where opportunities for bathing and for the drying of clothes are concerned. .In. one or two 01. the camps, it is stated’ some small improvements are being effected, though there is some vagueness as to what these improvements amount to. tn others nothing whatever is being done towards providing either baths or drying rooms. Public indignation, freely and forcibly expressed, no doubt would long ago have brought about an amendment of this discreditable state of affairs but for the measure of secrecy that has been imposed regarding the organisation and location of military camps. The policy of reticence in these matters has its obvious justification, but it most, certainly should not be allowed to cover up a culpable failure to instal. equipment and facilities which ought to be provided as a matter of course in every standing military camp. The equipment in question need not be elaborate, but it should be adequate to enable soldiers to keep themselves clean- and comfortable and to wash and dry their clothes. Showers and other baths of a simple type, with the provision of both hot and cold water, and covered-in accommodation. in which washing or wet uniforms and greatcoats may be dried in wet weather, are the principal requirements. Besides imposing needless hardship and discomfort on soldiers in cam]), failure to make provision on. these lines definitely invites, in the season of the year on which we are now entering, the outbreak of sickness and epidemics. Some hardy souls are said io hold that since soldiers in the field are called upon, to dispense with the amenities of civilised life, they should be content to do so while quartered in camps. Those who take this view should be invited themselves to live, for the duration of the Avar, in the conditions they propose to impose on the men now under arms to defend their country. The actual position, as has been mentioned before, is that at a number of military camps in. other parts of the Dominion reasonable facilities for bathing and for the washing and drying of clothes have been provided. They should have been provided before now at the less fortunate camps here referred to, and means decidedly must be found of constraining the authorities concerned to do their duty. If necessary an amount of public pressure which they will be unable to ignore no doubtcan be brought to bear upon these authorities. In this matter, however—one of an elementary provision for the health, welfare and comfort of troops in camp—there should be no need for the application of pressure. An end should be made A'oluntarily of the deplorable neglect and delay that has occurred and still continues.