OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 May 1942, Page 4

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

CONDITIONS IN CAMPS (To the Editor.) Sir,—While Mrs S. Fletcher and Mr A. Forsberg, of the Wairarapa Hospital Board, have earned the grateful thanks of all soldiers for their endeavours to have adequate bathing and drying facilities provided at the military camps of the district, I hqpe that the people of the Wairarapa will be stirred to give the statements of several other members of the board, the public condemnation they most surely have provoked. The statement made by one member, that if the men were overseas they would have to make their own arrangements displays a lamentable ignorance of the conditions which prevail on active service. Returned soldiers have told me, that they have enjoyed a good hot bath and received an issue of dry clean clothing while the shells were bursting within a few hundred yards of them. Another member of the board says: “One of the first things a soldier has to learn is to fend for himself.” What righteous indignation will be aroused when the men shut up in. camp, shivering and soaked to the skin, read this statement. What does the member suggest these boys should do?”

It appears from the remarks of the chairman, “that some provision will be made, but not on an elaborate scale,” that he also is afraid that our defenders will be too well treated if adequate battling facilities and drying rooms are provided for them. This attitude, “every man for himself and the de’il take the hindmost,” displayed by persons in responsible public positions, shows that tjiey have failed to realise the necessity for well-planned, sanitary camps, where the boys can enjoy reasonable comfort.

Surely it is a disastrous policy to wait until the boys complain, before they can get their wrongs righted. (A member of the board stated that the boys were not complaining)—a policy prone to take the edge off the keenness of their enthusiasm and reduce the high morale of the troops—l am, etc., MOTHER. Masterton, May 21.