WAR MEMORIALS

Otago Witness, Issue 3525, 4 October 1921, Page 25

WAR MEMORIALS

IMPERIAL SCHEME AT 1 HOLES. THE MESSES’IiS SITE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, August 5. General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston called on the High Commissioner this week to discuss the matter of tho Imperial memorial which it is proposed to erect on Cape Holies. Gallipoli. A consultation was also held with Mr Massey, and both the Prime Minister and Sir James Allen ex pressed themselves favourable to the scheme, and are confident, if the cost does not exceed that at present estimatd. New Zealand will agree to co-operate.

A site fer the Messines memorial was recently decided upon, but when Mr S. Ilurst Seager visited the locality a few weeks ago he found that the Belgian Government had built some wooden houses over the exact spot on which it was intended to erect the 6tone. On the other side of the road, however; there is an equally desirable site, and negotiations are now. going forward with a view to acquiring this from the owners. The Belgian Government actually purchase the memorial sites and become the owners, but in this particular case the High Commissioner is making arrangements to buy an extended area to ensure that no houses are erected so near as to spoil the general effect of the memorial. Some idea of the difficulties associated with these purchases may be gained from the fact that there are no fewer than six owners of this comparatively small plot of ground, and one of these owners has yet to be found. MEMORIAL TO THE UNIDENTIFIED. There is some difference of opinion amongst members of the Battlefields Memorials Committee as to how the money allotted for the commemoration of the unidentified dead should be spent. There are those who favour a general memorial in the shape of a monumental gateway to Ypres on the Menin road. Sir Janies Allen, who is a member of the committee, does not approve of this idea. “I am opposed entirely,” lie says, “and I feel I endorse the opinion held in New Zealand that it would bo much more preferable that the names of the unidentified should bo recorded in the cemeteries nearest to which it was known the casualties occurred.” Nothing definite lias yet been done.