Untitled

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 16 January 1926, Page 9

In addition to other war memorials, there is ,to be erected on the Suez Canal at Port Said one to commemorate the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who laid down their lives in Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Towards the cost of erection, the New Zealand Government has contributed £2OOO and the Australian Government £IO,OOO. The amount subscribed by members cf the New Zealand and Australian Forces serving in Palestine, who each contributed one day’s pay, totals ‘ £5400. This makes a sum of over £17,000 available for the work. 'The Commonwealth Defence Minister has .advised the New Zealand Defence Minister that competitive designs had been invited for the structure, the first premium being awarded to Mr C. W. Gi’bert. sculptor, and Messrs Stephenson and Meldrum, architects, and they have been entrusted with the work’. Mr Gilbert had almost completed modelling in clay one half of the statuary group, which consisted of two horsemen, one a New Zealander and the other an Austrahan, when he died. Arrangements wdre made for another sculptor, Mr P to finish in plaster the portion of the group nearly completed, and arrangements for the erection of the remainder had been held over pending the arrival in Australia of Sir Bertram Mackinnel, whose advice would he sought on the matter.—Dominion.