The War Memorial.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17064, 8 February 1921, Page 6

The War Memorial.

With the appointment at last night's meeting of the Wai-'Memorial Committee of a permanent executive and of a committee to choose designs for the two memorials the movement for the commemoration of those Canterbury soldiers who fell in" the war should make definite progress. So far it has dragged in a most regrettable manner, and even now a good deal must -be done to ensure its being carried out with the success that it deserves. The committee in the #e-. port presented to the meeting remarked that the sum collected/was "fairly " satisfactory" when it vv'ag remembered that the inception of any effort was so long delayed. With that qualification the statement may be allowed to pass, but we join with the committee in hoping that a much larger sum will yet be subscribed. For that reason it is unfortunate, W£ think, that the meeting did not appoint another canvassing committee to take 'up the task of raising further funds. The canvassers'who were responsible for collecting the £14,000 odd already given or promised confined themselves to the city. There can be no complaint about the way in which they performed their duties, but according to a statement by one of them only sotao 2000 people out of the 50,000 on the city and suburban electoral rolls gave anything. Surely there must/ be some way of inducing at least a majority of the others to subscribe something, if only a shilling or two each. Then we gather thatfc the country districts were left alone. Many of them, of course, have, or intend to have, their own war memorials, • but most country residents in this part of tho province would, we think, be willing to support a movement in which they are as personally concerned as the townspeople. It is also to be remembered that scattered through the Dominion, and especially thickly in some parts of the North»lsland, are thousands of people who claim Christchurch or North Canterbury as their birthplace. Many of them are ex-soldiers, and they, and probably a good proportion of tho others, would {jive some l)elp in erecting a memorial to the memory of Canterbury's" dead sons. The Auckland people, as we gather from a paragraph in yesterday's issue, are collecting in this island for their I memorial i why should not we at least

invite ex-Canterbury residents to subscribe to one in which they have some personal interest? The time is not propitious, we admit, for asking people for money, but this is a cause which should lie very close to the heart of Canterbury and should possess a very special appeal. Wc suggest to the permanent committee that they should not trust to people giving voluntarily, but should make some effort to appeal to those who have not so far subscribed to the war memorial fund. We cannot believe that a sum of less than £15.000 represents the full measure of this community's gratitude to the dead and its appreciation of their sacrifice.

Once more ;•> section of organised labour in New Zealand hus set, about rigluing v.hat it regards as n wrong in a maimer calculated to alienate the sympathy o!' the " public. The Otago branch or the Engine-drivers', Firemen and Cleaners' Association threaten to strike at midnight to-morrow unless one of the members, an engine-driver whom the Punishments Hoard lias disrated for a breach of the regulations, is reinstated by the time mentioned. On the statement of the matter given by the ''Otago Daily Times" and published in this issue, the driver, a man witli a clean record of thirty years' service and of many years' drivirg experience, appears to have been harshly treated. Admittedly he committed a fault, which under other circumstances might have had serious consequences. But those circumstances were absent from this particular case; no one's life or Eafetv was endangered by his action, and a penalty which involves him' in a monev less of over £3O. besides reduction in status, will strike most people as rather too severe, even when full allowance is made for the responsibility resting upon the Department to see that its 'servants obey strictly regulations framed in the interests of the travelling public. —-.q But if the punishment is too severe, the driver had his recourse in an appeal against it to the Executive or to the Railways Appeal Board constituted to deal with such cases. The local branch of tho E.F.C.A. seems, however, to have taken the matter out of his hand's, by threatening the Minister ,'ard the General Manager of Railways that they will resort to - direct action unless its demand for the reinstatement of the driver is granted within, a period too short to allow of proper consideration being given to the case. That is a stupid way of - going to work. If the nlen have as good a case as the report suggests, they could have won public sympathy by stating it quietly and adopting the constitutional methods of seeking redress.' But instead of taking this course they threaten actioD which would cause inconvenience and loss to everybody in Otago. We doubt whether their executive will support the men in the policy they have adopt ed, and we are glad to see that Mr Massey is not to be scared into hasty and humiliating submission to th? peremptory demand thrust at him.