LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Lettere of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effectire, than those which fill treble the apace.] THE WAR GRAVES.
ITo vas Derma or see " Seeeraroa."3 SIR,—In common with many of your readers, I should like to say hove entirely I agree with your admirable leading article of February 2nd on the subject of the Report of the War Graves Commission, and how earnestly I hope that the Government may see fit to sot upon the lines of the compromise suggested by you. The bitterness reseed by the recommendations of the Commission is, I fear, both deep and widespread in the minds of large numbers of those who mourn their nearest and dearest; and I feel sure that to add to their distress is the last effect that the members of the Commission would wish to produce. Yet, unless they are prepared to allow individuals the choice of patterns of headstones in the national cemeteries--within prescribed limits of sine and position—and also to increase the latitude given to relations to choose the inscriptions to be placed upon the headstones, there is a real danger that they will fail in their declared object of attaining unity among those most keenly interested in the subject, and that the great national work of the commemoration of the fallen may be the cause of discord and pain rather than of harmony and consolation. Sir F. Kenyon's Report is so fully imbued with the aspiration of making the great cemeteries the expression of all that is unifying and uplifting in our nation's sorrow„that I feel con- fident that when the strength of the feeling against some details of the recommendations is realized the Commission will do their utmost to meet the wishes of individuals in a sympathetic spirit. One more point. A fear is sometimes expressed that the plan may be to remove all British graves into some British burying-place, either to the great cemeteries or to the espalier ones to be made in special places. This is distressing to all those whose relations were buried, as many were, in the con- secrated ground of French churchyards. Need such graves be touched at all P One hopes there is no idea of removing these; but, as the recommendations of the Commission are not explicit Ms the point, an official contradiction of the rumour would
give relief to many.—I am, Sir, he., A. M.
Previous page
