WAR MEMORIALS.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 206, 28 August 1920, Page 17

WAR MEMORIALS.

A CONFUSION OF IDEAS. THE BEST IN AST NEEDED.

(By PHILIP GIBBS.)

Not only the nation its a whole, but each county, city, town, village, and

parish is prepnrins some scheme for a war memorini, anil there are almost as many schemes aa there are committer who have been appointed t. administer the various funds. It is a subject which stirs the deepest emotion in the heart of our people-, for every man. woman, and child is aware that this is a debt of honour which must be paid with love as well as with money.

There will bo no trouble about the money. Out of their poverty the poor will give, more generously, because with more self-sacrifice than the rich, who will also give ungrudgingly. Unfortunately there is * still, after many months of discussion, a confusion of ideas about the character of the memorials to which the local funds will be devoted.

But surely first and foremost should come the monument, or shrine, or'cenotaph, to those who died and to their eternal spirit of patience and courage in dreadful days when we were menaced by the Great"Peril and only saved from destruction, by the wounds and lives of these men.

"SOONER OR LATER." I feel that with something like passion, remembering all the years of war, when I saw our young men go forward, month after month, into unceasing fires, knowing (quite eica-ly in their sou's) that in the long-run they had hardly a chance of escape from the death they did not like to die.

"Sooner or later,"' they said, and some I knew said "The sooner the better."

That wjis not because they had lost tiheir love of life. It was because the suffering, the filth, the nerve-strain were getting unendurable. Yet they fought on to their fate, whatever it might be, and on many days of battle I saw their bodies on the ground, or in field hospitals where they died of wounds, or in graveyards where they were buried quickly.

THE CEGSTTRAiL IDEA. Because I knew these men, guessed something of the thoughts that went with them, saw the splendour of their endurance of dreadful things, I, and I think most men who were with them, will not tolerate amiably any kind of wax memorial which does not have as a part of it, and as its central idea, come definite visible reminder of the youth that fell.

We do not want to enjoy ourselves out of the price of their sacrifice. We do not want to use the emotion of their people for relieving our pockets of rates and taxes, or for easing the State or the municipality of social duties.

There is no memorial idea in providing a new organ for the parish church, or a dancing hall for the village green. In big schemes for counties or cities, as in little schemes for parishes and hamlets, the war memorial should be something which should arrest the mind of the passer-by with the thought of those young ghosts who must haunt the spirit of the nation for all time unless there is forgetfulness of valour and carelessness of tragedy.

A CALL TO COURAGE. The 'Memorial of the Dead must be the safeguard of the living by teaching those who follow to learn wisdom _y our stupidity, and to cherish the of peace with more than idle thanksgiving.

Above all it mv.it be a call to Courage. There will be suffering in the world to come—there is never escape from that—but self-pity will be less poignant to every man or woman who stands before a war memorial and thinks a little of what those lads endured, and how bravely they faced it all, before they died.

. Unless our war memorials speak those things they will but condemn Us of very dreadful callousness, of most shameful selfishness, and the legions of ghosts who are our dead wili cry out against us.

I see the difficulties. I realise the perplexity of committees who have enormous funds at their disposal, and of other committees in parishes and hamlets who will have but a few pounds or so.

In one case there is too much money for a mere monument; in the other too "little for a noble piec. of sculpture.

DANGER OF THE COMMONPLACE. I am in sympathy with the local desire for a memorial to the boys who once played on the village green or went out of an old grammar school to the great School of Courage through which they passed with honour to the playing fields of eternal youth. There is a danger, hideous to contemplate, of the whole country being littered with war memorials "executed" by local masons, or 'by contractors on the town councils, trtterly uninspired, vulgar, and co_t_monpl»co in craftsmanship. That would tie deplorable, and it would be better far to have a pleasure garden with some flowers, or a new organ for the village church. Again, with a quarter of a million pounds, aa some counties and cities will have in their memorial funds, it is possible to do more than build a monument, and It is right to devote some of the money to improvement of the living nee wtdle remembering those who died.'

Bat the essential spirit o* every scheme ehould be "For Remembrance." There is nothing to be said against the idea of Manchester for a Temple of Etaano—<a "Pantheon" —in honour of the Bast Lancashire Regiments in the wax. It would be the central portion of __» City Art Gallery, and on its walls would Ibe frescoes depicting the most heroic actions* of the (Lancashire men, _a_h as The Last Stand at the Manchester ißedoubt, the Storming of Thiepml, and the Lancashire Landing at GWlipoli. , torminghaim proposes to Bpend '£300,000, excluding t_e cost of land, upon _ new City Hall, approached ____£_• a memorial Bhrine, where the !_*__ of Honour will be recorded on the ti__n_L

BEMEMBRAiNCE FIRST. I believe that our war memorials mnxn&i! be for Remembrance and not for Utility, flrst of all, or for Philanthropy before all else. And I see no reason why out of such emotion as ■urges round the Cenotaph there should not come a spirit of grief and gratitude about flhese monuments which would be an inspiration throughout the nation. ■We must guard most against vulgarity, and if there is any art in us now it has its chance, for the emotion that goes out to tho idea of this tribute to tho dead i. simple and true in the hfiaxb of the people ; and out of sueh_ simfptityrsixA truth of Ipve art ehould be