THE WAR MEMORIAL MUSEUM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20244, 2 May 1929, Page 12

THE WAR MEMORIAL MUSEUM.

Public opinion will be overwhelmingly in sympathy with the protest made by Lieut.-Colonel Dawson, in renewed advocacy of the views of returned soldiers, at the exclusion or at least subordination of the essentially memorial features of tho War Memorial Museum. According to a statement published last week by the chairman of tho Citizens' Committee, the cenotaph and tho court of honour were never part of the original scheme, but were contemplated only as an adjunct to it if there were sufficient funds after the completion of the original work. At what point in the history of the museum this separation was made is not clear. There can be no question of the fact that when the original scheme was before the public the "adjunct" was clearly an integral part of it. The award in the competition for designs was published in September, 1922 ; the architects showed the cenotaph in their drawings and in the accompanying report gave pride of place to a description of that feature. When the public appeal for .funds was made in November, 1923, the "permanent memorial" of sacrifice in the war was the primary purpose, the museum being the secondary motive. There cannot, therefore, be any doubt that while the people of Auckland endorsed the idea of combining a memorial and a museum, the intention was that the museum should be a background to an associated feature of intrinsically memorial character. Mr. Bankart has expressed the committee's sympathy with the desire for the addition of tho cenotaph and the court of honour, but has stated that the work has to be left in abeyance because sufficient funds are not immediately available, though a nucleus of the necessary amount may be available when the committee's accounts are closed. Whether the museum, including the modified memorial features within it, has cost more than the original estimate, based on the contract price, will appear when those accounts are published, but, in any event, public opinion will share the discontent of the Returned Soldiers' Association at' the indefinite postponement of the cenotaph and its intended setting. Before the Citizens' Committee decides that these must be left in abey&nce, would it not be well to announce what their cost would be and to give the public an opportunity to subscribe a sufficient fund to complete the whole design in its full character 1 . ,