Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1918. MEMORIAL OF PEACE.

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 3636, 19 November 1918, Page 2

Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1918. MEMORIAL OF PEACE.

War hae its trophies. They will come to Feilding in due time in the shape of captured guns. Peace has its memorials. Just what shape Feilding's Momorial to Victory and Peace will take is now beginning to agitate the mind of somo of our poople. It has already been suggested that it should take the form of a Band Rotunda. "We shall need something more befitting the end of a World War than that sort of memorial. As lief a statue, and that sort of memorial has quite gone out of fashion. But there is a Memorial of Victory and Pease for Feilding that would not only be well worthy of the occasion, but its erection would be something not only in the nature of an achievement, but would in every way satisfy residents of the town and country alike. It would also enable the patriotic residents of Feilding and district to do somo justice to the men who have sacrificed their lives for liberty and those who have returned from the war by giving their children a chance to benefit by it. We refer to the proposed College of Agriculture. This would be an adequate, a fitting, an ideal Peace Memorial, and it would bo ambitious"enough to tempt our men and women of means to contribute their hundreds, if not their thousands, sterling to its funds. To those few cavillers who might suggest that an Agricultural College is not a fitting institution for a momorial we would point out that the Auckland Agricultural College was

erected by public subscriptions to tho memory of Richard Seddon. There has been a movement under way for sonio time to equip such an ideal centre as Feilding with a technical collogo for tho training of the sons of farmers and other young men who desire to go on the land. If there was such an institution in working ordor here to-dpy, how it would bo rushed by thoso returned soldiers who desire to settle on the land, who have not had tho opportunity of learning ovoii the first principles and practices in farming. Now is tho opportunity to provide this felt want. There is no such institution over a wide area of tho island, and it would have a large patronage. We havo said the scheme is ambitious. Wo do not desire to imply that it is cither beyond our means or that it is extravagant. There is a modest area of 10 acres already bespoken, at a cost of £1000. An adjoining 10 more can be secured fdr another £1000. The sum of only £2000 is needed to be subscribed, and 'there are half a dozen farmers in our immediate district who coulcl contribute that total without making any sort of sacrifice out of the extra profits the four years of the war havo given them. The Government will erect the necessary buildings once the land is secured. Then there is the other feature of this admirable Memorial to Victory and Peace that will appoal to the fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and lovers _of the New Zealauders who fought and fell and survived for the liberty of the world and the prosperity of tho primary producers in the campaigns on Gallipoli, in Egypt, in Sinai, in Palestine, m Syria, in Macedonia, in France, in Belgium, in Italy and on the Seven Seas. This will probably be the most popular phase of the memorial—the contributions of funds foi founding scholarships. There will be relatives who would like to provide a scholarship in the name of a loved one in this, the first institution of the kind in the Dominion. There will be other men of more or less modest means who will contribute a scholarship as a thankoffering for the safe return of a son oi sons. There will probably be a scries of district-subscribed scholarships. The country districts that will" probably send their sons to the Agricultural College for expert training > will include Apiti, Kimbolton, Waituna West, Halcombc, Sandon, and .Rongotea, besides those nearer at hand. Each of these areas, with Colyton, Taonui, Bunuythorpe, Awahuri, Cheltenham, Kiwitea. will surely provide its separate memorial scholarship. These scholarships should all be made available first for the children of soldiers, and they would make a splendid endowment for so fitting a memorial of the Great War and the remarkable victory, with its resultant peace. We shall be pleased to acknowledge contributions to Feilding's Peace Memorial, and should like to see the funds sufficiently generous to provide also a hostel for country students.