SOLDIERS’ MEMORIALS

Manawatu Times, Volume XL, Issue 13948, 29 July 1918, Page 4

SOLDIERS’ MEMORIALS

Design Causes Dispute MU BUSSELL SPEAKS OUT. [Per Press Association.] DUNEDIN, Last Night. In replying to a deputation representing the Returned Soldiers’ Association, in regal’d to questions as to tho providing of suitable headstones for returned soldiers’ graves, and having a general memorial in each cemetery, the Hon. G. W. Russell said a design had been prepared for a uniform headstone made of reinforced concrete with N.Z.E.F. in raised letters and a cross dividing the four letters and towards th e bottom a marble slab of about 10 inches by 15 inches, on winch the names wmuld be engraved. Three or four of these had been made by the Public Works Department and submitted to the Defence Department for approval, but the Defence Department seemed to have different ideas, and there had not yet been an agreement, though it must be nearly a year since the stones had been made. Ho would endeavour to have the matter brought to a conclusion, though ho was not sure it could be done till Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward returned. Twenty or thirty soldiers had been buried in Wellington, but he had authorised the disinterment of the bodies so as to have them all in soldiers’ sections, and he w'as prepared to give the same authority here, provided the relatives consented. Ho approved of the suggestion to have one large monument in tho centre of each soldiers ’ plot in each cemetery, and he thought there would be no difficulty in securing money for such monuments. The Government would pay for the headstones. The total cost might come to anything from £70,000 to £IOO,OOO. The headstones designed by tho Public Works Department w-ould cost about £3. It. was a generous offer of the Dunedin City Council to pay for their maintainance, but the Women’s National Reserve in Wellington had promised to do this, and ho felt euro the Women’s National Reserve in Dunedin would be equally willing.