THE SHACKLETON MEMORIAL.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20490, 8 March 1932, Page 5

THE SHACKLETON MEMORIAL.

STATUE OF THE EXPLORER. commemorative speeches. (TROU oua OWN CORRESPOKDENT.) LONDON, January 28. For some years-'a committee has been at work collecting funds for a national memorial to Sir Ernest Sliackelton. Fart ol the work of the Memorial Committee wa.< completed by the unveiling of a loft bronze stalue uf the explorer on the outer wall of the headquarters of t-he Royal Geographical Society. 'The Society's buildings are situated ■'f fbe. ooniei' of Kensington Gore and Exhibition road, facing Hvde Park and a few yards from the Royal Albert Hall. The wall of the building in Exhibition road is n windowlcss brick area. In the middle of this is a large nicho framed by Portland stone, and in this the statue of the explorer clad in full polar costume lias been placed. The sculptor is Mr Charles Jagger. .Many ol the public *tood in tlia street lor the brief ceremony of unveiling the statue. Inside the Geographical Society's hall, invited guests assembled to listen to the commemorative speeches. Some of Shackleton's old comrades were there, and representatives of all the polar expeditions during the lust thirty-live years. Money Available. I.ord Zetland (chairman of the .Memorial Committee) said a sum of £3300, including interest, was at the Committee's disposal. Part of this they wero able to allot in the fonn of an annuity to Mrs Shackleton, the niothsr of the explorer. It had been in their minds to assist, had it been necessary, in the education of Shackleton's children, but at the special request of Lady Shackleton no part of their fund had been used for that purpose. Part was spent in erecting the granite memorial in South Georgia, in the neighbourhood of the last resting place of Sir Ernest Shackleton, and part' would be spent iu the acquisition of a bronze bust to be entrusted to the keeping of one of the public institutions in this country. The greater part had been devoted to the ererction of the striking statue of Shackleton in polar costume, so finely executed by Mr Charles Jagger, which they were assembled that day to see unveiled. l)r. Hugh Robert Mill, Shackleton's biographer, described the explorer's Antarctic expeditions. The first, he said, showed audacity in attack; the second, unrivalled virtue and patience in securing a retreat. His mind included qualities so diverse that these seemed almost impossible of existing side by side, did one not consider the ancestry which brought him, on one side, from the line of sturdy, quiet, peace-loving Yorkshire Quakers, and, on the other side, from a lively, impulsive, and pugnacious Trish stock. Shackleton was both at turns, bnt the turns camo at the right time. When lie was pushing forward in the attack he was all audacity, all daring, but it always stopped" short of recklessness. His caution blossomed only in the face of danger if it affected others, and not himself. The speed with which he observed, and the accuracy with which he reasoned, really led his path to success. A Great Ambition. Lord Zetland said lie asked himself vhat was the outstanding feature of the achievement on which Shackleton's claim to fame must ultimately jest—the journey of 1909, when Shackleton with three, companions,, forced his way over 366 miles of hitherto untrodden ice and snow from the southernmost point reached under the leadership of. Scott in 3902. to a post 100 miles only from tho Southern Pole. To him, looking at the matter with the eyes of a layman having no personal experience of Arctic travel, it was the extent to which the planning, financing, organising, .and, in a sense, the final execution of tho project was the work of a single man. There was no cbmmittee of organisation, np public appeal for funds, no Government help—just an individual, fired by a great ambition,working away doggedly and with unflagging optimism to render possible the attainment of a distant, but alluring, goal. Here, clearly, was a man ot parts, inviting something more than passing notice. He was, in fdet, a striking example of a type—a type which had sent forth into all lands pioneers in exploration, commerce, industry, and administration; an adventurous and a ruling type; a type which seemed always to have flourished on British soil; one without which Britain would have re-* mained but an insignificant island in the German Ocean, and Greater Britain would never have come to-be. Shackleton's choice of a seafaring career > seemed to have been purely accidental, I and to have followed the reading at an. early ago of C. F. Hall's "Life with the Eskimo." . | In actual practice he was reckless in his generosity. Appreciable sums of money which flowed in as a result of his lectures in New Zealand on the eve of his expedition in badly needed for the purpose of the expedition itself —he devoted to local charities. This was an episode oft | repeated throughout - his career. It was when warring with the stark realities and the constant danger of the Antarctic that Shackleton was at h j: best. It was when thus tested that his powers of leadership and endurance, his .resource and judgment, his courage and endurance, came into play. It was a remarkable tribute to his qualities that lie never lost a life in any .one of the expeditions that he led. Let those who-would assess this fact at its true

value study the amazing retreat of the members of the trans-Antarctic expedition after the loss of the Endurance in the ice in 1915. Heroic Qualities. It might be argued that for a single moment —and that a fatal one—Shackleton's judgment failed him; but no one could harbour feelings other-than those of the highest admiration for the heroic qualities which he displayed during those long and nerve-shattering weeks when he and his party drifted helplessly on the ice* floe; during the desperate battle with the waters when, their very world cracking and dissolving beneath them under the influence of the warmer waters into which they had drifted, they made in three small boats across 100 miles of turbulent ocean for Elephant Island; during the 17 interminable days of strain and terror, when, with five companions,- he fought his way in one small boat across 800 miles of water from Elephant Island to South Georgia; and, finally during that crowning incident of courage, and endurance when, with two companions, he set forth to cross the snow-clad and untrodden range of mountains which lay between him and help in the shape of the small population of a whaling station. / One would have to search long, indeed, to find in the annals of any Northern race a saga of the sea more thrilling in its incidents, more moving in its emotional appeal, than that set forth with so fine an understanding in the pages of Dr. Mill's biography. Such was the man whose memory they sought lo perpettfate as an example to his race, by means ot the statue of which, he now invited the president of the Royal Geographical Society to accept the custody. Admiral Sir William Goodenough, president of the Royal Geographical Society, said It was with .pride and, indeed, with some reverence, that on behalf of the Society he accepted charge of the statue. It would serve to remind them of a man, had he lived in the Golden Age, would have. been such as Drake or } Walter Raleigh, or such as those whose names encircled that hall as their lives indeed encircled the world- a man to whom adventure was an inspiration, danger an incentive.