OUR GRAVES IN FRANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19008, 4 May 1925, Page 8

OUR GRAVES IN FRANCE.

The disinclination of the French communes to transfer to Britain the land titles of all the British warcemeteries in France is disappointing. The very fact that they are on French soil is an eloquent reminder of the part played by these dead helping to rescue France from ruthless destruction, and there should not be begrudged enough ground for all that is mortal of them to lie in undisturbed honour. It is true that much land is thus taken up. In the region of the Sornme —about Bapaume and Arras and Albert, and out to Cambrai and St. Quentin, to Lens and Bethune — the cemeteries cluster in sad array. On the site of the Ypres salient thev lie tragically numerous. Round Armentieres there are two score of them. They take land ; yes, but for every acre that they occupy they gave a pledge of Britain's love to France, and that is worth more than houses and harvests in a day when France is likely to be in sore need of trusty friends. There is in Notre Dame Cathedral a tablet bearing, above the French translation, this inscription in English—"To the. Glory of God and to the memory of one million dead of the British Empire who fell in the Great War, 19141918, and of whom the greater part rest in France." • That rest should be unbroken by any merely commercial interference. The Imperial War Conference of 1917 emphasised the principle of the permanence of the war graves. The chairman of the Imperial War Graves Commission, speaking in the House of Commons in 1920, laid the same stress on the principle. Arrangements are well in hand for worthy memorials in every British cemetery in France. The best that architects and engineers can do to make these hallowed spots beautiful and inspiring is being done. Concentration would lessen the tribute and the appeal they should make. Everywhere that there is "a carven stone and a stark sword brooding on the bosom of the cross" in a cemetery's centre, Frenchmen for ages to come will read the story of British comradeship, and it cannot be told too often. British folk everywhere will hope that the French members of the Anglo-French War Graves Committee will be able to persuade the authorities of the communes to waive their objection to giving Britain every one of these friendly footholds in France.