WAR MEMORIALS

Southland Times, Issue 18077, 2 May 1919, Page 6

WAR MEMORIALS

PLEA FOR ERECTION OF IDEAL SCHEMES. (By the Right Hon. Sir Alfred Mond, Bart, M.P., First Commissioner of H.M. Works, London, England.) I have no doubt that the subject of war memorials is one to which more and more puglic attention will be directed in the concluding stages of the war. The national desire to commemorate in a suitable manner the sacrifices which have been made by those who laid down their lives for their country is universal. Great the cause was and great the sacrifice has been, so the memorials should be great in the real sense of the word—not necessarily in magnitude, but in beauty. It will be very unfortunate that, when victory comes, the country is to be covered by the art of the monumental mason, only too familiar in our graveyards, with the forms of war monument atrocities with which Germany covered herself after 1870.

There is, however, to my mind, a great danger to be avoided when the erection of the war memorials is being considered. The danger is that all who are philanthropically inclined will immediately apply their wealth to what they regard as suitable war memorials. The tendency to confuse philanthropy, utility, and art is so often disastrous to the production of something really fine. Wings of hospitals, baths, libraries etc., etc., all excellent civic objects which require maintenance, *do not for that reason become memorials of a great historic event, of suitable emblems of the great sacrifices that have been made. We must see that whatever form war memorials take —and they will assume many forms —they shall realty make plain to all generations and .to all people for what purpose they were erected and what they commemorate.

A war is being fought for a great ideal — the liberty of the world —and the memorials must succeed in embodying this ideal. Of course, locality, site, surroundings, and local associations must be carefully regarded. It might be possible to have some central idea on the lines, perhaps, of beautiful market crosses, which are to be seen in many of the older towns. To attempt by such means to obtain a united scheme emblematic of the universal sacrifice of the nation in stereotyped form could, or should, be adopted. The Royal Academy recently had a conference on this subject in which I took part, and have, I believe, formed a strong committee of eminent architects and sculptors, which will be prepared to assist in an advisory capacity local authorities aiul others contemplating the erection of war memorials. This is undoubtedly a movement entirety in the right direction, for it will enable the best geniuses of our time to find the real expression and to prevent any flagrant breach of taste being perpetrated. A committee of the House of Parliament has already been considering the question of a war memorial to be erected to its fallen members and members’ sons, to the officials of both sides of Parliament and their sons also. The commission for the memorial has been entrusted to Mr Bertram Mackenoal, M.V.0., A.R.A., and will be placed under the great window just outside the public entrance to the House of Commons, facing Westminster Hall. Of course the Imperial War Museum, when it comes to be erected, and the other museums throughout the country, such as that established in Scotland, will naturally of themselves be permanent records of the great endeavour of the nation, for enclosed within their walls will be a perpetual remembrance of the activities of the country during the war. While not in themselves symbolic monuments of the war, but rather an illustration of the events to commemorate all that has been suffered and endured, the buildings will lend themselves very naturally to combination with monuments of a sculptural character. In fact the combination would be an ideal to be'achieved, the artist expressing in the monuments in the most beautiful form the symboled essence of all the great sacrifices made for the triumphant victory, the building containing representations of all that has contributed to make victory possible. I feel certain that to this almost sacred question earnest and reverent consideration will be given, and that neither artistic efforts nor the means to cany them out will be stinted when the time comes; and I have little doubt that the country will demand from he Government some great national monument which will express to all time and generations its profound gratitude and devotion ■to these countless numbers who gladly gave their lives that it could live.

(Reprinted from the Pall Mall Gazette of August 26, 1918, and the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects of September, 1918, and taken from the “The American Magazine of Art,” January, 1919.)