THE PROPOSED MEMORIAL TO LORD OLIVE. Loin: CURZON has issued
a statement relative to the commemoration of Lord Clive, in which he says :—
"The answers which I have resolved to the letter which I wrote to the Times on April 8th about a memorial to Lord Clive, and the references which have appeared in the Press, encourage me in the belief that there is a sincere and widespread recognition of the desirability of commemorating that great man in some public form. The large majority of -my correspondents favour the erection of a statue in India in the first place ; but several go on to express the hope that funds will be forthcoming for a memorial in London as well. The suc- cessful realisation of this must obviously depend upon the response to the appeal which I now feel justified in initiating. A statue in Calcutta I hope that we shall secure without difficulty ; a monument in London ought to be equally within our reach, if the public sentiment be what I am led to think. The mistake in my first letter about the statue of Lord Clive erected in the India House in 1784, and now not too happily placed in a dark corridor in the India Office, was due to a misreading of the index to the official catalogue of the contents of that building. Under the heading 'Clive' I found the reference to the modern mason's effigy in the Inner Quadrangle, which is, of course, without any value, but I failed to identify the reference to the sixteenth-century statue by Scheemakers. In any ease, a representation of Clive in Roman costume, with a sword in his hand and a shield with Medusa's head lying at his feet, cannot be considered very satisfactory, any more than in its present position it can be regarded as a public monument. The following have consented to join me in forming a Committee to raise funds and to determine their subsequent allocation :—The Marquis of Lansdowne, the Earl of Rosebery, the Earl of Elgin, Earl Roberts, Sir George White, Lord George Hamilton, Lord Ampthill, Mr. John Morley, Sir Alfred Lyall, Sir Mortimer Durand, Sir Offiey Wakeman, the Hon. Charles Lawrence, Sir W. Forwood, and Mr. St. Lee Strachey. I have come hope that special support may come from Man- chester, in the neighbourhood of which Lord Clive was educated and spent some of his early years, and I propose to address a separate appeal to the Indian newspapers. Contributions may be paid either to myself; to Mr. Perceval Landon, 5 Pall Mall Place, S.W., who has kindly consented to act as secretary to the fund ; or to the Olive Memorial Fund, Bank of England, London. Among those who have already offered to subscribe are the Earl of Rosebery, £50; Sir W. Forwood, £25; and a number of donors of smaller SUMS down to Sc. Their names will appear in the first list."
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