WAR GRAVES UPKEEP

Evening Star, Issue 21147, 6 July 1932, Page 6

WAR GRAVES UPKEEP

AGREEMENT BETWEEN MOTHER COUNTRY AND DOMINIONS OVER .15,000 CEMETERIES 1 Major-general Sir Fabian Ware, vicechairman and accounting officer of the Imperial War Graves Commission, has forwarded to Sir James Allen, who when High Commissioner for New Zealand was a member of that commission, a copy of the agreement now come to between the Mother Country and the dominions in regard to the war graves endowment fund. The original intention was to create such a fund on a basis similar to that on which the cost of the Imperial War. Graves, Commission’s work had been carried out, of £6,000,000 to provide the. income required for the maintenance of] the war cemeteries and memorials for; all time. _ By the middle of 1931 the,participating Governments other than', that of the United Kingdom had furnished their total share of, the capital* sum._ ■ The United Kingdom, however, 5 in view of the fact that her proper- : tionate' contributions were far heavier.* than the rest (more than 80 per cent.-! of the dead of the Empire representing! her losses in the war) had agreed to| spread her contributions over a longer * period, actually by payments of £3OO 000 a year during the final year, on the, formation of the endowment fund. The) Dominion Government, however, with; the full concurrence of the commission,? being anxious to afford all possible re-’-lief to_ the Mother Country in her present difficulties, offered to accept a postponement of £200,000 due in 1932, and: that offer was given effect to in an' agreement dated October 22, 1931, providing that the contribution of His' Majesty’s Government in the United! Kingdom for 1932 shall be £IOO,OOO, and i that the amount of contribution for 1933 or any subsequent year shall, if so desired by that Government, be considered by the Governments of the do-, minions at the beginning of the year in question. This agreement is signed by representatives of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Graves Commission. The formal making of such an agreement is of vast importance. Prior to the signing the Imperial Government’s guarantee was no more than a Cabinet decision. The formal agreement, implemented by Parliament, places the matter for ever beyond discussion; The interest on the £5,000.000 will keep the graves in order for all time. The twelfth annual report of the Imperial War Graves Commission embodies a statement the particulars of which are impressive. The number of burial grounds is 15,705, in twenty-eight different countries. New Zealand’s total' of burial grounds is 308; Australia’s 315. In Great Britain and Northern Ireland the number is 9,262. TO LAST FOR ALL TIME. Conversing this morning with a reporter, Sir James Allen said: " Every-j body who has anything to do with tmsl scheme believes that it will prove a] permanent settlement of the whole] problem of remembrance and upkeep,! When the agreement now come to 4s j fully honoured, as, of course, it will be, \ seeing that the British Government isnot given to breaches of faith, there will be no occasion for anyone to worry,” Sir James went on to say that at the beginning of the movement ha did not agree with the permanent policy proposed. His thought then was that it would be a splendid idea to so direct the movement that each of the ions should have every year a reminder of the dead by voting on the Estimates for the expenditure. Sir Fabian Ware, who has been the top man right through, and is the permanent vicechairman, and has done wonderful work, took the opposite view. Time is proving that his ideas were sound, and Sir. James has written to admit that Sir Fabian was right. " The construction work in all the cemeteries is now praeticaEy finished,”* added Sir James. All that remains to be ’done, so far as I know, is ‘detail work, such as correcting mistakes in the lettering on headstones and so forth.”

Many albums of photographs of Cemeteries and memorials are in the possession of Sir James Allen, and the reporter whs permitted to look through' them. Every country has its own war memorial or memorials on or close to actual ’ battlefields. The expense of erecting such memorials was in the main borne by the country in which they abound, aided in some cases by a vote from the War Graves Commission.; Further, in such of the larger cemeteries there is “ a cross of sacrifice ” and “ a stone of remembrance,” the cost of those structures being defrayed wholly, by the commission. One of the Imperial officers, A. W.; Mildenhall, a New Zealander, served on the staff of the War Graves Commission at Gallipoli and subsequently in France and Belgium, and it was hoped by many persons who knew of his good work that he would be kept on the commission as the New Zealand representative in the final stages; but ho lias returned to this dominion and is now in Wellington. Padre Mullineux is another whose aid to the cause must never be forgotten. He has been engaged for nine years on the gigantic task of photographing the; memorials and headstones. At the date' of writing the last letter hc sent from* London—in May of this year—thoj padre had visited seventeen countries) and travelled by land and water,; 101,759 miles, and by now his work must he nearly finished. Delays often hindered him. The individual graves were to be photographed, and in every, case the name when known was to ba carved in. The delays referred to were caused by having to wait for corrections. The padre remarks in of his letters to Dunedin: “ The work, undertaken hy me was in token of my appreciation of the brave mothers, so that the question of profit or sdlary did not arise. So far as lam concerned it is a labour of love.” In all his travels the padre never had more than one assistant photographer, and ho was dispensed with as soon as the padre could carry on alone.