CIVIC MEMORIALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26770, 13 May 1948, Page 2

CIVIC MEMORIALS

Si r _l should like to associate myself with “ Gaudeamus ” in raising my hat to the memory of James Macandrew. Dunedin seems to have a mania for tearing down monuments. In 1872 Cargill’s monument was dismantled and shifted from the Octagon to Customs House square. Dr Stuart’s statue was taken down and re-erected. Macandrew’s monument was dismantled, and during the centenary celebrations the Burns Monument was demolished. Cannot Dunedin make up its mind regarding its civic memorials? The bust from Macandrew’s monument was dumped into the Early Settlers’ Museum, and during the centenary celebrations reposed on the floor in a remote part of the building. No trouble seems to have been experienced in finding room for “ Josephine ” in front of the Early Settlers’ Museum. " Gaudeamus ” does well to record that the memorial to Macandrew was erected by citizens of an earlier day, and, that being so, I should like to ask by whose authority was it torn down. Bracken wrote of Macandrew: He set the pulse of progress beating high, And laid the firm foundation of a State; His were the thoughts that ever onward fly With lightning speed to make a people great. Evidently, the best some of the " great ’’ people could do in the march of Otago’s progress was tear down the monument erected to Macandrew’s memory —I am, etc., Quo Jure?