MEMORIAL TO LORD HAIG

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21307, 11 April 1931, Page 15

MEMORIAL TO LORD HAIG

THE UNWANTED HORSE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 26. At the annual conference of the metropolitan area of the British Legion a resolution, unanimously carried, recorded the conference’s dislike of the two models of the statue of Earl Haig, “ seeing that they do not portray the late field-marshal as he was known to those who fought under him.” It was suggested that neither model be accepted, and that the commission be submitted to open competition throughout the country, with no restrictions on design. Sir lan Hamilton .said that he had seen both models, and neither showed the figure or the face of the man they knew. The first horse was a hippopotamus, and the second a giraffe.— (Laughter.) “ I don’t know that the statue should be necessarily an equestrian one,” Major Cohen said. “It might be one of him standing up with his hands behind his back, as wo often saw him, or it might be one of him sitting at a desk.” Sir lan Hamilton recalled that he commanded a native cavalry regiment in India at the time when Lord Haig was In-spector-general of Horse. “It was my duty to buy horses, and if I had dared to buy a horse like these two, or had shown him a man sitting on a horse like these two things, I should have been kicked out of my job by Lord Haig.”—(Laughter.)