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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16428, 23 January 1919, Page 6

Tlie letter of the Rev. W. Walker, a former padre of the Rifle Brigade, in reference to the War Memorial, which we print to-day, seems to us to be both ill-advised and unjust. Jlr Walker is evidently angry because the proposal for a "Hall of Memories" in connexion with the Soldiers' Club has been abandoned, and he writes:— "Those privileged to return to our shores say—'We have a noble ideal which we desire to see carried into effect. We will help to the utmost of our ability, but we ask you for £20,0001 Will you help us to raise it?' Tho reply comes back, 'Nay, ask not for £20,000, it is far too much considering how our businesses have suffered, and the small profits we have made. Drop the major portion of your scheme and wo will help you to raise £8000.' "

, It is needless to say that this grossly misrepresents the position. It implies that tho objection to the proposal of the Returned Soldiers' Association is due solely to meanness, and this is a gross libel on th e people of Canterbury, who have contributed with the utmost generosity to every patriotic fund, and have checrfujlv submitted to war taxation unparalleled in our history. Tho strongest objection to tho Hall of Memories idea comes from those who are willing to give the soldiers their club, but who think the suggested Hall of Memories will not be an adequate recognition of their service, and urge that a very much larger sum than the £12,000 set apart by the Returned Soldiers' Association should bo subscribed in order to raise a war memorial worthy of the occasion. 4 We imagine that all the {intolerable fustian in Mr Walker's letter about the bravery and tho sacrifice of the soldier will be particularly distasteful to the men whoso modesty on such subjects is proverbial. We can hardly believe that they will approve the general tone of the letter, ivhich is singularly calculated to offend and alienate those who are most anxious to show their appreciation of our soldiers and their work. ' ♦ ' A war-time regulation that surely should now bo revoked is that compelling senders of newspapers to America to do so through tho publishers, who have to submit them to the censor. So many war regulations have been cancelled that it looks as if the cancellation of this' particular regulation, which is obviously nbw quite unnecessary, has been overlooked by the authorities. • It has been suggested by some contributors to tho discussion 4s to the form that our war momorial should take, that in place of the proposed Hall of Memories, which has now been abandoned, the soldiers' trophies of war should be placed in an annexe to the Museum, in which a featuro should also bo made of rolls of honour in a permanent form.. It is of interest to note that the Local War Museums' Association at Home is proceeding along this line. At an inaugural meeting of the committee, held recently in Loudon, and attended by tho curators of many provincial museums, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Arthur Leetham urged that portraits of officers and men, and 'rolls of honour, should be obtained and preserved. A gun captured by a local unit was of more interest than a specimen obtained from a general distribution, though he laid stress on every museum having ,a minenworfer, and mentioned that the flags of U-boats would be of local interest. The Canterbury members of the motor-boat patrol ought to be able, between thom, to provide one or two of these for the Canterbury collection.. Bolshevism, as we have seen omy too frequently during the past year, spares neither youth nor age. To promote their objects its agents murder a weakly boy because he was the son of the late ruler of Russia, and an aged philosophic anarchist like Prince Kropotkin, who, no matter what one may think of his principle, was a devoted and self-sacrificing friend of the oppressed. News of his murder reached London some ten days ago from Bergen, and no details of the crime were given, though it was said that the Bolshevists denied responsibility for it— a denial which may be taken for what it is worth. It is difficult to imagine any other persons in Russia who would murder a septuagenarian who had given 50 years of his life to the cause the people. ♦ Prince Kropotkin had had an extraordinary career. Ho was the son of a Russian prince, of immense wealth and with a taste for playing the autocrat on his great estates. His treatment of his serfs awoke in the young Kropotkin the sympathy which develop.

Ed into the revolutionary spirit and led to his being relieved of his position as one of the rojal pages. In his early manhood he was a noted traveller in Russia and Asia, and did good scientific work in investigating glacial deposits in Northern Europe. When about 2o years of age he decided to cast in his lot with the working classes, who, at that time, in Russia were in sad need of help, and the death of his father, from whom, he inherited a large fortune, enabled him to advance tlxe cause iie had espoused. His rank did not save him from being sentenced to imprisonment in a dungeon in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, from which lie escaped at the end of two roars.

From Russia Prince Kropotkin went to England and thence to Switzerland, but his conduct of an anarchist paper there led to his expulsion at the re-, quest of Russia, and ho went to Franee, there to be sentenced to a fine and imprisonment for five years for assisting to foment a strike at Lyons. Subsequently he returned to England, and lived for many years at Brighton) going back to Russia after forty years of exile, when the Revolution had as he believed, brought about the realisation of his ideals. The Prince was as far removed in many ways from tho average nihilists and anarchists whose doctrines he supported as could be imagined. - Pie was deeply cultured, a renowned linguist—he spoke 15 languages—extremely gentle and kindly, a painter, musician, and mathematician of great ability, and a noted writer on Russia, and on geographical, political, and economic subjects. Some of his books, such as "Fields, Factories, and Workshops," and "The Conquest of Bread," and, to a lesser degree, "Memoirs of a Revolutionist," "Terror in Russia," and "The State, its Past in History," are well-known to English readers.