BRIDGE OF REMEMBRANCE.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17985, 31 January 1924, Page 8

BRIDGE OF REMEMBRANCE.

QUESTION OF INSCRIPTION.

A DEADLOCK DIFFICULTY.

There appears to exist a deadlock between the Bridge of Bemembranee Committee and the special Bridge.Committee of the City Council regarding the text of the inscription to be placed for commemorative purposes on the Bridge of Eemembrance, now in course of erection, and which is being paid for partly by City Council money and partly by private subscriptions. Mr J. Wyn Irwin, secretary of the Bridge of Eemembrance Committee, stated on Tuesday that the committee' 3 original letter with an approved inscription had never been considered by the City Council, the Mayor having seen fit to hold it back. The committee wanted an answer to its letter.

The Mayor explained yesterday that the matter of the inscription had been referred by the Council to the special Bridge Committee set up by the Council. Various communications had passed between the Council's committee and the Bridge of Bemembrancs Committee, and all letters written by the latter committee had been replied to by the Bridge Committee of the Council, to whom the whole matter was referred. A letter written by tho Council committee to the Bridge of Eemembrance Committee on November 22nd still remained unanswered, and as that affected vitally the question of the inscription, nothing further could be done as tar as tho Council was concerned until a reply came to hand. The committee could not report to the Council until it had received that reply and had arranged the terms of the inscription with the Bridge of Eemembrance Committee.

The letter sent by the Council's committee to the Bridge of Remembrance Committee on November 22nd, and to which no reply has yet been received, was as follows: —

"In reply to your letter of the 10th inst. regarding the inscription proposed to be placed on the record stone of the Bridge of Remembrance, I am directed by the Council's War Memorial Committee to inform yon that instead of the inscription contained therein the following would be more suitable: 'ln Honour of Noble Sacrifices, 1914-1919.' The committee is also of opinion that the following Latin inscriptin would be preferable to the one mentioned in your letter: 'Nulla Dies Memori Vos Eximet Aevo' (Eemembrance of you shall be ever cherished). "Will you be good enough to.inform the committee what battle names it is proposed should be placed on the Bridge, the committee being of opinion that the campaign in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Palestine should be included."

The Latin inscription adopted by the Bridge of Remembrance Committee which now actually appears on the stone is: Quid Non Pro Patria?" (What will a man not do for his country?), and the amended commemorative inscription proposed to be placed on the Bridge by the Bridge of Remembrance Committee is: "Erected by the citizens of Christchurch in grateful remembrance of Canterbury's sacrifices, 1914-19." Neither of these inscriptions, the Mayor states, has been approved by the Council, and the suggestions of the Council's committee relating to the. inscriptions contained in the letter of November 22nd had not even been acknowledged by the Bridge of Remembrance Committee. In the matter of the names of battles, the Mayor said, Which the Bridge of Remembrance Committee proposed to have cut on the bridge, the list, a3 made out by that committee, related only to the French and Belgian front, and ignored altogether the other theatres of war in which the New Zealanders operated. "The Council is the controlling authority of the Bridge," added tho Mayor, "and its approval is required before anything proposed by any voluntary organisation is adopted*"