CITY WAR MEMORIAL

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21281, 28 September 1934, Page 19

CITY WAR MEMORIAL

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir,—The letter yesterday about the projected war memorial was timely. The younger generation do not want it and, I am sure, we old soldiers do not want it. The boys who died would say, "Spend the money on the children of New Zealand and make them worthy of the traditions of their race." The men who were killed outright had a most envied death. How often have I grieved that I did not die on the battlefield. I have suffered for 16 years, only to be the object of contempt because I cannot work. Take a case in point. In April, 1018, we were defending Meheren. I went across to a farmhouse to get a drink and there in the middle of the yard lay the body of a New Zealand soldier who was coming to the front line for the first time. He was so different from us. We were thin, ragged, and dirty. He was in excellent condition, well clothed and sleek. He had died without knowing pain, and to him monuments are raised. He wants no monuments and neither do we. We, both, would like to see the money, handed over to Dr. Jas. Hight

and used for the university education of our children.—Yours, etc., 2nd CANTERBURY. September 27, 1934. TO Til« BDITOB Of THE I'R«3S. Sir, —Your correspondents have renewed a sore subject, the spending of thousands of pounds on another memorial 16 years after the end of the war. The mentality of those responsible for holding this huge sum of money during the misery and want of the depression years is easier imagined than described. Surely the stubborn refusals to apply this money to assist those who fought and came back, and the widows of those who fought and did not come back, are a crime against Christianity. What have the churches to say about it? Or are they silent? The building of war memorials costing millions all over the country while "soldiers' widows weep over wash-tubs," is the most potent argument against war and even patriotism. In England they have launched the new Cunardcr, costing £5.000,000, yet the veterans in the Chelsea Army Home in London get dripping to eat because it would cost another 4Jd a veteran a week to supply butter. Thus our great Empire honours its heroes. Some time, somehow, somewhere, "the last shall be first and the first last." Where will the flag-wavers and war memorial builders be then? If half what we are taught is true those who fought and came back to want and hardship and those left by the fighters who did not come back will hear: "Friends go up higher."—Yours, etc., THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR AS THYSELF. September 27, 1534.