WAR CEMETERIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18877, 1 June 1923, Page 11

WAR CEMETERIES

LABOUR MEMBERS’ SATISFACTION. TURKISH GOVERNOR VISITS ANZAC. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 18. Five Labour members of Parliament have visited the war cemeteries in France. In the course of a published statement they say; “International courtesy and fraternity demand that we should, in the first place, acknowledge the deep gratitude we experienced on finding that, in every case, the land for the war cemeteries had been set aside for ever by the peoples of France and Belgium at their own cost, the whole of the purchase price having been paid by their Governments. This gift includes 1300 cemeteries of considerable size, and numbers of small groups of graves iii churchyards and village cemeteries. “Perhaps what impressed us most, and what we had not realised before, was the vast area rendered for ever sacred by the graves of the dead of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and all the British dominions beyond the seas—our brothers of every class who gave their lives for ns in the Great War. The eloquence of the figures, appalling as it is, fails in its full effect unless one has actually gone on pilgrimage from cemetery to cemetery all down the old battle front, in the villages behind the line, and the towns still farther back. It is indeed doubtful if any branch of national effort since the war can compare with this as regards the vast area with which it has to deal, its variety, and its complexity. It seemed to us that there was hardly a village from Ypres to the Somme in which the great while cross of sacrifice, bearing the emblematical bronze sword, was not to bo seen.

“But the reason wc are giving publicity to our impressions is that we hope they may bring some comfort to many, whose thoughts for ever turn to those blood-stained- battlefields, when they know that we were struck by not only tho energy and efficiency shown throughout the war, but by tho spirit of reverence and loving care which characterises all grades of the commission’s staff whom we met, 98 per cent, of whom are ex-service men. Of those in immediate charge of the graves, the in the cemeteries; we can only say they are doing'their work in a way which is worthy of their country and of their comrades who have fallen; there was a fenderness in their treatment of each grave which, being British, they characteistically .concealed under an oiftward semblance of simple devotion to duty. The cemeteries’’ themselves are poignantly beautiful. What struck us most was their simple dignity. Wo had heard a great deal of the equality of treatment accorded to all war graves, hut until we visited the cemeteries we never realised what it really meant to see every rank of soldier, from general to. private, lying side by side under the same simple headstones, silent witnesses to future generations o' the world's greatest tragedy.” . AMERICAN BLUEJACKETS AT GALLIPOLI. News comes from, the Dardanelles that 100 bluejackets arid marines- from the United States cruiser Pittsburg were taken last week in British Army motor lorries from Kelia Bay to visit the Anzac graveyards, and to see the formidable positions, which the Australian and New Zealand troops'.stemmed eight years ago. _ During the week, too, the Turkish Governor of the province of Adria.nople with his staff, was given permission to visit Anzac. They were greatly impressed with the thoroughness with which the work of collecting the dead and the construction of simple But impressive graveyards had been carried out. 1