H.—l9b.

A. W. BOBIN.]

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236. At any rate, the medical man who goes into camp to train bearers, and so on, in their duties must himself first have military knowledge?— Yes. 237. And you have not got enough of those men?— Well, as far as 1 know I could not say it was so throughout the Dominion, but I think you will have a difficulty in getting them. Tho Director of Medical Services could tell you that, but I am of opinion we have not got enough. I may be quite wrong about that. 238. You do not know what available supply there is, but, at any rate, you know you have not got enough?—l know that we have up till the end of the year sufficient of our Medical Corps to go with those reinforcements; but for trained ones, who can in turn instruct the men in the military side of a Medical Officer's duty, I think we must be getting pretty short of them. 239. For instance, we had Dr. Harrison, who gave us an account of his duties, which consisted of coming in from Trentham in the morning and visiting all the hospitals and getting back. Manifestly he could have little time for instruction? —Yes. 240. While the doctors are so occupied with attending to the extraordinary outburst of the epidemic the ambulance training .must go by default?—lt must, sir. I can see no other alternative for it. 241. Would the instruction they get by acting as orderlies in the hospitals give them the training they require?— Well, for some of them it would, but not for stretcher-bearing and collecting the people. 242. There are technicalities of stretcher-bearing which have to be taught? —Yes. I am on very thin ground here. I do not know much about the medical requirements. There is the whole question of first aid, and the Ambulance men conic across men every day. It is not always a doctor who attends to them. The Ambulance men have to be instructed in regard to first aid on the field and in the firing-line. 243. I suppose the hospital does not come under your cognizance at all? —Any more than in the early stages of it some moneys were collected for providing a hospital at Trentham, and reached a stage at which some plans were made which went before the Minister, and then really passed out of my hands. 244. I believe I have suggested the various topics we have been discussing here. I do not know whether there isv any point that you would voluntarily like to address yourself to. You have probably seen in the newspapers what the points at issue appear to be? —Yes. I do not know that there is anything that suggests itself to me except that a little while ago an extra visitation of trouble in the way of the measles epidemic took place, and we were blamed for not having thought out anything to meet it. On the contrary, you will find the medical authorities had such a thing. thought out. They had made arrangements for hospitals outside Trentham and for procuring other places, and it is pretty hard for us to fight what is evidently a visitation of trouble that came suddenly and unexpectedly on us, and because everything was not arranged in twenty-four hours there has been so much adverse criticism put on to the whole arrangements without the people knowing of the difficulties which existed. 245. Some additional 2,500 men were decided upon some time in February last?— Well, each month there have been new units coming in, and it has been gradually growing, and then the decision to send two battalions came in about the end of May, 246. Well, it has been suggested that they were too many for the camp out there? —It was too many for the plans we had. 247. And the sanitary arrangements had to be enlarged, and so on?— Yes. 248. There was an undue pressure?— There was for a time an undue pressure. 249. More than it could accommodate?— Yes; but not more than we were able to deal with r and that is to keep them in comfort and feed them. 250. But could the position have been met by putting those men elsewhere, having regard to the numbers you had available for training, and so on?— The condition would never have arisen had it not been for the continuous wet weather that came on top of us in addition to the measles trouble, and it was because of the wet weather as much as anything that we had to separate the camp into the three places we have now, together with the epidemic. 251. You think that without continuous wet weather you would have come through without trouble ? —I feel quite sure we would. 252. Notwithstanding that you had seven thousand men there? —Yes. 253. Mr. Gray.] You know that huts have been used in other countries? —Yes. 254. And you approved of the idea of putting men in huts instead of tents?— Yes. 255. Have you any reason to suppose that the use of huts has been unsatisfactory?—No, I have not. 256. You have had no personal experience of them yourself, I understand? —No, not at. Trentham. 257. Have you had any experience of them in South Africa? —There were no huts there except at Maitland. When coming away after being there for two years they had some long rows of tin huts. I would not have been inside them except that we had to be examined for plague. They were long huts—longer than the ones we have at Trentham. Those are the only huts I have had experience of, except the huts and shelter we erected ourselves when we happened to be somewhere where we could beg, borrow, or steal some iron or material to make them of. 258. With regard to the huts at Trentham, was not the idea this : that the men should be accustomed to living in conditions as nearly as possible equal to the open-air conditions plus shelter from the rain and weather ?—That is so. I do not think any of us thought, and I certainly had not in my mind at the time, the idea that they were to be made for permanent habitations.