MINISTERS' STATEMENT

Hutt News, Volume 18, Issue 44, 28 February 1945, Page 5

MINISTERS' STATEMENT

It was reported to a meeting of the Lower Hutt Ministers' Fraternal on December 18th that the Lower Hutt City Council had approved of the proposed Returned Soldiers' Club as a fitting war memorial for the Hutt City. The members of the Fraternal were amazed that the City Council should have decided on such an important matter as that of a memorial for those who had fallen in the war, without first calling a representative meeting of citizens and more particularly of the relatives of those who had made the supreme sacrifice; and more especially that they had reached this decision at the first meeting at which the matter had been brought up, and when members of te Council could not possibly have given due consideration to such an important matter.

We were most surprised also that the matter of a memorial for the fallen should have been decided upon while we were still in the midst of the struggle and many more sacrifices were likely to be demanded of us. We believe that the time to make such a decision—although plans might well be carefully considered in the meantime—would be when hostilities have ceased.

Moreover, while we fully realise that the present premises of the Returned Soldiers' Association are woefully inadequate, and would heartily support an effort to obtain a much more suitable building for the carrying on of the Association's important task, we do not consider that a Returned Soldiers' Club is a suitable memorial for our war dead even when it contains a Chapel or Shrine as proposed. We feel that the .need for a Returned Soldiers' Club must pass in say twenty years' time, or much sooner perhaps as happened in so many places after the last war. The -Chapel and Shrine would th,en be situated in what would have become little more than a public restaurant or open Club; and would surely not be considered a fitting setting for something which was to commemorate the splendid sacrifices of our glorious dead.

It is surely essential that such a memorial should be placed in a position which will make it easily accessible to all members of the public and especially to those whose loyed ones made the supreme sacrifice; and not part of a building which serves one section only even if that section is the returned .soldiers of the last two wars. We would suggest that should such a memorial shrine be decided upon as a suitable war memorial for the Hutt it might much more fittingly be made the focal paint around which a new "Civic Centre" might be built. After all it would symbolise the' foundation upon which we hope to build a new and better world when peace comes—the sacri-] fices of those who gave their all for the freecTbm of the world. At the same time we would again emphasise the fact that it is our firm conviction that no decision should be made concerning the City's War Memorial until the Citizens have been fully consulted and given every opportunity to make their suggestions as to what form such a memorial shall take.