THE WAR MEMORIAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18612, 21 July 1922, Page 4

THE WAR MEMORIAL.

It was said by Mr Loudon, a member of a deputation from the Dunodin War Memorial Fund Committee which j waited on the City Council this week, that it is certainly a reproach to this city that a memorial of the war has not yet been erected in our midst. With this statement there must be very general agreement. It is, indeed, a higldy discreditable circumstance that I the city should have lagged so seriously as it has done behind numbers of smaller places in the provincial district in the establishment of some permanent public memorial of the sons of Otago who yielded their lives on behalf of the Empire in the Great War. That is to put the matter quite mildly. For not only has no memorial been erected, 1 but there is no immediate prospect of the erection of one. If we are to be quite frank about it, it must be acknowledged that the public imagination has not been wholly captivated by the form of the memorial that is proposed. A difference of opinion respecting the precise manner in which the memory of the soldiers who fell in the. conflict

should be honoured has operated, and is still operating, against the success of the project. It would be idle to ignore the regrettable circumstance that this is the case. It ia unfortunate, no doubt, that the form of the memorial was decided upon at a meeting which cannot be said to have been really representative of the whole body of the citizens. But the project as it stands is that which appealed to the majority of those present at that meeting. This being so, it may fairly be put to the minority that it is their duty, as members of a democratic community, to accept the views of the majority and to assist in the removal from Dunedin of the reproach which at present lies on the city. If the will of the majority is not to be respected, there can never be any finality in the settlement of questions which are decided by public meetings. We are fully sensible, at the same time, of the weight of the objection to the elaborateness of the design of the obelisk which will, according to plan, be erected in Anzac Square. A monument of which simplicity and dignity are the distinguishing features is, to say the least, certainly not less impressive than an obelisk of imposing l dimensions. The cenotaph in Whitehall, London, furnishes a conspicuous example of j. memorial which, generally recognised as being in excellent taste, was erected at a cost that is very considerably below the estimate of the cost of the erection of an obelisk in Dunedin.