The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1919. THE GRAVES OP OUR FALLEN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 134, 1 March 1919, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1919. THE GRAVES OP OUR FALLEN

The w<ar discovered a deep mine Of generous feeling and' altaiistic sontiment among the non-combatant millions throughout tho Empire, ; : and this sympathy becamc the driving -force of countlcss agencies having for their aim the health, happiness, and comfort of our soldiers. These sentiments Jiavo captured the Home and Dominion Governments, and everything that can .be done for'the wounded soldier and for the dependants of _ those _ who made the supreme sacrifice will be done. These feelings have led our Governments to care also for tho last resting places of the dead. Shakespeaue said in his day that "tho houses that the grave-digger •makes last till Doomsday"; but this has''not been so witlv regard to the graves of soldiers'in- many a war. These graves have been without vis-, ible monuments, and they, liavo soon become .part'of tho common soil. A better fate is to: attend- the graves of our dead in this war. The' War Graves. Commission, at whose head is Mr,. Kudyard Kipling, have re-, commcndcd that an enduring headstone, he erected on each grave, on which will be -marked tho faith, -name, and rank of the deceased, and the epitaph furnished by 4 his relatives; and in addition to this a cross of-sacrifice, aijd an altar-like stone of remembrance, will .be set up in every .cemetery. -This- pious work will bring some consolation to - countless (thousands who liavo been stricken, with for it satisfies a sentiment that is almost an instinct in the human race, Our New Zealand dead ' resting in Gallipoli, '.Mesopotamia, Flanders, and else- ■ where will have their graves sacredly 'carcd for. - Rupert; Brooke finely said-that tlie soil on which he should die in battle v/ould'be for ever England. The graves of our dead, far off'across the sea, are for over New Zealand,' and it is satisfactory to know, that visible, monuments will make known that, fact for generations. Those graves, will be places of pilgrimage for .-an immense ■ -multiv tudo throughout our Empire.- This i task is'vi. great undertaking, and it will take an' army of artists and sculptors and masons to accomplish it. Tho work cannot be done for 6ome time; but Mft. Rudyard Kipling's proposals'will no doubt bo carried .out to the. full.. : "

.. This custom of commemorating *tho dead by -visible monuments and treating their■■burial place.as almost .sacred is ono of the oldest and one of 'the most widespread customs of the.-human race.:-. Mr, Kipling is tholast .'of a succession of builders; of memorials of the dead that run back to an age before history begins... In prc-historic-times'the dead were, cbnmiemoratcd' by rude erec-tions-of • stone,, and wo- have' cromlechs'and dolmens in various places that run back to; that agcr. The ago 'of 'HoSier is no longer' prehistoric and.lvc read that over the graves of Hector . and -Achilles were built ''ba-rrow's". or" mounds of. great size/ lb is, to this sentiment of building, memorials for-the dead that,we are" indebted, for. a largo part of our knowledge of peoples- ;and' races that, jived long ago. -We have'dug out of 'graves a liirgepart of the early-his-tory of' Romans,' Greeks','' Persians, Egyptians,'"arid /Babylonians; The literature of the world is .full oflthe sentiriierit' which., Mb. Kipling's Graves Commission stands for. Tho elegy . and the ; _epitaph have an important place in song, and to some writers,, like Dit. Johnson, the duty of commemorating the aead was ■ part .of -their ■ religion. Thomas CarLYLE 'hks fallen in evil days as the result of his lack of vision of the German menace. . It may be rioted here, 'however,' : that ,few men.were •'more mastered by the sentiment we are' here' discussing;': ' His' wife's grave,; in. Haddington was a sacred spot'to him, arid; to -it-he iriade peri-, odic visits. ,When frail and totter.ing, he . visited the place, and v the graverdigger reports that ho stayed on his knees at the grave and bent over and kissed the ground v again and again. Amiel, the French spiritual philosopher, felt as Carlyle felt, and so he commended "respect for the dead, the-poetry of the tomb, the piety of memory." Mr. Kipling's mission; shows that our national feeling"-has a regard for those virtues 'Amiel commended. We may well respect-oiir fallen soldiers and pernetuate their memory. The official-' dispatch said regarding the 'couraee andjsacrificeof' the Anzacs at Gallipoli: "Antiquity has no more glorious'. Story, and ciur annals nothing bra, ver." Elsewhere their record -has been the fame.; and of them the' poet truly said: , ~ Sound' the last' iiost for di" dend. .' Drop 'ii tear 'mid the foiling tears, T.lin bays'on ,eacii'iliero's libail, Shall be green for a thousand years.