MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IN the House of Lords, last week, there took place an interesting debate on the subject of war memorials. Lord Chatfield opened the discussion in his capacity of chairman of the War Memorials Advisory Council, and asked for and obtained an official statement to the effect that the report of the Council had the general approval and support of His Majesty's Government. 'What, therefore, are the nature and functions of the War Memorials Advisory Council and what does their report contain? In April of last year the Royal Society of Arts, under the presidency of Dr. Armstrong, summoned a conference to discuss the means by which the public could be persuaded to demand a higher standard of taste and fitness in future war memorials. An Advisory Council was thereafter formed under the presidency of Lord Chatfield, upon which, in addition to the Society of Arts, other organisations and societies should also be represented. The scope and authority of this Council can best be indicated by mentioning some only of the many associated societies who have agreed to assist in its discussions. They include the National Trust, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, the Men of the Trees, the National Council of Social Service, the National Playing Fields Asso- ciation, the Headmasters' Conference, the National Federation of Women's Institutes, and the Royal Institute of British Architects. It may be said, indeed, that no established society concerned either with the preservation of our ancient heritage or the provision of future social or cultural amenities is unrepresented on this Advisory Council; the Report, therefore, is a most important document, and one which should be studied by all authorities, whether urban or rural, who may be concerned with the erection of memorials to commemorate those who fell in the second German War.
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The Problem is obviously one which must be approached with tact. It would be a grave error on the part of any Council, however representative or impressive it may be, to seek to impose any general pattern or standard in a matter so closely identified with deep and intimate personal feeling. The War Memorials Advisory Council do not, therefore, say to the public : "This is what we think you ought to do ": that would be an act of impertinent indelicacy. What they say is : "After the war you will wish in your locality to erect some memorial to commemorate the fallen ; we propose to establish central and regional bodies who will be able, if asked, to provide you with expert advice." I do not believe that such a suggestion will diminish the individuality or intimacy of local memorials, or can reasonably offend any susceptibilities. The problem will in itself entail some form of consultation, and eten of co-ordination. Every urban, rural and even parish council will from the start be faced with the fact that there already exists in the market square or on the village green a memorial to those who fell in the last war ; in many cases these memorials occupy the only available site ; the difficulty of either duplicating or enlarging existing memorials will at once become apparent ; and it will be a relief to local authorities or committees to know that there does exist a body of experts who have carefully studied the problem and who are prepared to put before them several alternative solutions from which they themselves can choose, since the chief value of the Report is that it does not recommend any uniform pattern, but suggests several alternative ways in which the wishes of a local comenunity can be met.
* * * * What are these alternatives? The main essential is that any memorial should provide, in permanent form, a record of the names of those who lost their lives, and in gratitude to whom the memorial has been erected. In all too many memorials of the last war the inscriptions were badly cut, or poor material was used, with the result that today they have become either unsightly or blurred. The Council recommend, therefore, that in future greater care and know- ledge should be devoted to the inscriptions or, alternatively, that a Book of Remembrance should be provided which would perpetuate not the names only, but also the achievements, of those who fell. The Report suggests also that when the memorials take the form of monuments they should not be "mere standardised products of commerce " ; but that every endeavour should be Made to secure the
services of individual artists "well acquainted with, or prepared to study, the sentiments of the community . . . and the location chosen
for the memorial." There will be cases, moreover, in which the sum collected will exceed that needed for a single monument, and when the balance can be expended upon some social purpose likely to prove of lasting benefit to the community as a whole. Prominent among such purposes would be the erection of community centres and village halls which are so badly needed in many rural areas. Alternative suggestions are playing-fields and children's playgrounds, parks and open spaces, hill tops or view points, memorial trees and avenues, gardens of memory, or the preservation of local buildings of historical or architettural importance. The more enlightened parish councils, moreover; might be willing to pool their resources, and to combine in creating some fine memorial for the whole area in place of small and often inadequate monuments on separate village greens. And, finally, service, regimental and national memorials should, whenever possible, be subjected to careful and expert con- sideration in advance.
* * * * In recommending' this Report to the House of Lords last week, Lord Chatfield stressed the point that after the last war there was in fact no " co-ordinated thought" on the subject of memorials, and that his Advisory Council had as its main purpose the creation of a body or bodies from whom expert advice could be obtained. "There is one thing," he said, "that we do not preiend to do, and that is to lay down any laws or rules." He also drew attention to the need for making provision for future maintenance, so that the memorials, when once erected, should not thereafter fall into decay, and "be no longer things of beauty and respect." Other speakers drew attention to the chaotic effect produced by unrestricted indi- vidual initiative ; Lord Winster instanced the gawky asymmetry of Trafalgar Square, Lord Samuel the jumble of statues at Hyde Park Corner, Lord Esher the shaming ugliness of Charing Cross Bridge. The Bishop of Chichester urged that we should imitate Chichele's example after Agincourt, and found another All Souls ; and Lord Lang of Lambeth drew attention to the fundamental importance of carefully designed lettering, and instanced the distinction given to inscriptions by such artists as Eric Gill or Edward Johnston. Lord Munster, in replying, gave the general blessing of the Government to the Report of the Advisory Council which, he felt sure, would provide a "useful guide" to all local or voluntary bodies Concerned with the erection of memorials. It was a sensible debate, a useful debate, and one which deserved more publicity than it secured.
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It would be foolish to contend that all the memorials of the last war were lacking in taste or dignity ; we have only to compare them with those erected after the South African war to realise how much the knowledge of our aediles and the awareness of the public have 'improved. We have the Cenotaph, the Scottish War Memorial, the cloisters at Winchester, the garden at Canterbury Cathedral, and such fine municipal memorials as that designed at Leicester by Sir Edwin Lutyens. The difficulty arises rather in regard to the smaller, and especially the village, memorials when funds are scanty, experience limited, and local individualism intense. It is to the parish rather than to the city that the War Memorials Advisory Council should address their most urgent and their most tactful appeals. It is inevitable that small local communities should wish their memorial to be personal and intimate, and should be reluctant to invite the assistance of some outside. body which may seem to them inhuman, intellectual or remote. From this aspect the presence on the Council of representatives of the National Federation of Women's Institutes is perhaps more important even than the assistance of the R.I.B.A. For what is needed above all is a sense of permanent rather than immediate responsibility on the part of the ordinary man and woman.
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