WAR MEMORIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26544, 20 August 1947, Page 6

WAR MEMORIAL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE ADVANCE OF LEARNING SUGGESTION OF AIR FORCE ASSOCIATION P.A. WELLINGTON, Aug. 17. The establishment, of a “ national memorial institute ” as a national war memorial is recommended by the Air Force Association, Dominion headquarters of which has issued a statement setting out the association’s attitude to the question. A national memorial institute would administer a plan, the statement says, under which promising young men and women, preferably sons and daughters of ex-servicemen or ex-servicemen themselves, would be given special facilities to study overseas under contract with the institute, and would also be given adequate salaries and facilities to ensure their return to this country and the application of their knowledge to the benefit of the whole community.' The government of the institute should be in the hands of an independent board composed of representatives of the universities, ex-ser-vicemen and women, employers and employees, farmers, the Government and others. The young men and women selected would specialise in matters of importance to the community—medicine, agriculture, education, world relations and overseas political or economic trends, industrial developments and industrial relations, trade economics, atomic research, and so on. The information acquired would be at the disposal of the whole community through the institute, which would work with Government departments or bodies where mutual advantage could be gained. The association, the statement continues, considers that the accumulated patriotic funds, together with Government grants, should be adequate to ensure an annual income to meet requirements. Discussing other types of war memorials, the association says it is not opposed to the erection of cenotaphs, shrines, or monuments where these would be used as central points for ceremonies of remembrance, but considers that where such monuments exist duplication is not necessary and an inscription or enlargement could be made to commemorate the dead of the Second World War. The association considers that great care must be taken with the utilitarian type of memorial to avoid the danger of its being used as an excuse to provide what should be provided as a public amenity in the normal way. For this reason, the association is not in agreement with the provision of community centres, sports grounds, and so on as memorials in themselves.