WAR MEMORIALS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 142, 18 June 1942, Page 4

WAR MEMORIALS

A NATIONAL SHRINE?

A recommendation by a sub-com-mittee that the association's headquarters be requested to consider and formulate a policy wtih regard to war memorials, both during and after the war, was adopted almost unanimously at the N.Z.R.S.A. annual meeting last evening. The convener of the committee (Mr. G. B.'Menzies) said the -general view was that the idea of erecting memorials all over the country as in the last war was not quite, the right thing, and one suggestion was that headquarters 'should go into the question of having a fitting memorial for the whole of New Zealand instead of a multiplicity of statues and other memorials throughout the Dominion. If that view was generally favoured now was the time to move, since the committee understood that already some districts were discussing the form of their memorials for the dead of the present war. Mr. D. W. Russell, a Christchurch delegate, said that instances were known of memorials being erected at present. . His executive envisaged the possibility of a great memorial in Wellington, where the remains of an unknown New Zealand soldier, brought back from overseas, would be placed, and which would be dedicated as a national shrine. To a delegate who thought that the wishes 'of the small localities should be considered, Mr. Menzies said that the erection of local memorials could ! not be prevented, but the committee's idea was that Dominion headquarters should formulate a policy on the whole question. "