WAR MEMORIAL

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 56, 30 November 1923, Page 8

WAR MEMORIAL

CITY COUNCIL DONATION £5OOO VOTED 14 was recommended to the City Council last night by the Emance Committee that a donation, of be made towards the erection of the Wellington War Memorial, £2oQO to be placed on next year’s estimate© and the balance to be placed on tn© estimates for the following year. Councillor Aston did not consider that the proposed form of n eniunal would be satisfactory. The Mayor said that the «>t© :n Courtenay PJace, near the Royal Oak Hotel, and the nature of the memorial had been definitely decided upon. The committe© having the matter in hand had raised £9OOO or £lO,OOO, and the council was asked to provide another £5OOO. Councillor Mitchell deprecated th© attitude of those who now opposed th© deliberate decision arrived at yet did not take the trouble to attend th© meetings. Councillor Monteith said that they had a duty to the living as well as th© dead, and compared tho donation or £5OO from the council for the fund to help tho living with the ioOOO to commemorate the dead. On that ground he intended to vote against *the recommendation. The Mayor explained that th© £5OO proposed for the radium, fund was wanted at once and was nJ the council could spare for it. now. .1 here was no intention of discriminating m regard to the two grants. Councillor Luckie considered that Councillor Monteith's remarks- were without due recognition of the position. The proposed memorial was not only a duty to the dead, but a lesson to themselves, their own people, and the generations who would follow. Councillor Chapman thought it was more th© duty of th© citizens to provide the balance of the money required He rather favoured the idea of a utilitarian scheme in preference to a monument, although he yieldedto noon© in his desir© to commemorate the deeds sif the dead or the maimed Councillor Forsyth considered it rather a pity that the matters had been mixed. They owed a duty to the dead for verv many reasons, and n© found no fault with the proposed The recommendation was agreed to.