ITo Tag EDITOR OF THE " SPEGTATOR."1
Sui„—Tlie proposals of the War Graves Commission furnish a striking and unpleasant proof of the significant and dangerous growth of the bureaucratic spirit since the outbreak of the war, and of the tendency of officials to exaggerate their importance, and to look upon themselves as the masters, instead of as the servants, of the public. Sir F. Kenyon and the Commission act as if they, or at least the Government, were the owners of the dead, and had the unrestricted right to settle all about their disposal. They seem to have strangely mistaken their functions, which were surely to make arrangements for sell- able graveyards, whilst ensuring, as far as possible, for the next-of-kin, who are the owners of the dead, the same rights and privileges which they would have in an ordinary English cemetery. This imams a sacred right which should be insisted on in the interests of individual liberty. I trust that some combined.action will be taken to safeguard it. A. recent letter to the Times puts it very well, where it speaks of "the spirit of needless interference, the spirit which even claims its right to pursue the soldier after he is dead, and prevent his family from putting a stone over his grave."—I am, Sir, &c., II. M. L.
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