WAR MEMORIAL

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 126, 25 February 1928, Page 11

WAR MEMORIAL

BATTLE OF THE SITES MR. SEAGER WRITES TO COMMITTEE A letter has been forwarded by Mr. 8. H. Seager to the chairman and members of the Wellington Citizens’ War Memorial Committee in reply to one from the committee which, says Mr. Seager, he had received with the very deepest regret. "I had hoped," he writes, "that the arguments I had brought forward and illustrated fully would have immediately appealed to you, and that, the whole question could be settled without any further publicity or differences of opinion. I could only come to the conclusion that you had not read carefully my report, or, if you had, that I have not made myself sufficiently clear. I can imagine that you must have' experienced deep disappointment to find that the site of your choice has all the defects which have been pointed out, and I should not have ventured to bring these before you had I not first of all ascertained that there was an admirable site on which your monument could be placed; a site which has been acknowledged by everyone to be a site which would do full justice to the monument you have chosen, and add exceedingly to the beauty and dignity of the city. "There may, perhaps, have been some misapprehension as to my position in the matter. You will remember that in 1926 I was asked by the Hon. W. D. Stewart, then acting as Prime Minister, to report to the Government on the suitability of the triangular site in front of Parliament Buildings for a war memorial. In that report I showed quite clearly that it w r as not from any point of view a suitable position for a war memorial, and I then thought that the problem could be solved by carrying out the Mount Cook scheme, in which your memorial was placed in a prominent position on the slope leading up to the plateau. The alternatives at that time were the Parliamentary triangle or the Mount Cook site, and I quite admit that there were many strong objections to your accepting the Mount Cook site, firstly, because the Government had not expressed their views on the matter, and it was not determined whether the whole scheme could be carried out; secondly, the City Council had not shown exactly what they proposed to do m beautifying the surroundings; and, thirdly, it was objected that there was not sufficient room around the memorial for the gatherings which would take place on Anzao Pay. I was therefore not surprised that you did not accept the Mount Cook site.. Soon after tins it was physically impossible for me to concentrate on anv question, and when I could do so, the Massey memorial took the whole of my time, but 1 felt very keenly indeed when I discovered that it was proposed to lower Buckle Street, and when I found that Kent Terrace had been made such a remarkably beautiful avenue, that my previous report was obsolete. I was impelled on my own initiative to supplement my report to the Government, which has now been published. “I felt that the conditions had so altered since the publication of my report that I should be failing in my duty had I not endeavoured to make this perfectly clear to all parties so that a regrettable mistake should not be made. I, therefore, at the earliest opportunity, commenced the preparation of my report as a continuation of that I had previously made. An illustrated copy of this report I left at the office of your hon. secretary on the morning of Friday, February 10, hoping that your committee would have had an opportunity of considering it before its publication. I am fully convinced that now your committee have had an opportunity of studying the report and the correspondence which it has evolved, they will reconsider their decision. "You will remember that you made application to' the Government in. 1924 to reconsider their refusal of the Parliamentary site. You pointed out that it was extremely difficult to find a site that combined prominence with accessibility, that the locality meantime fixed upon was the site at the rear of the Eoyal Oak Hotel, which valuable site was generously donated by the City Council. You felt at that time that, although central, the site was otherwise not the most suitable, and you remarked that your efforts to collect . funds would be not inconsiderably handicapped by a fairly widespread body of public opinion strongly adverse to the site. You pleaded with Mr. Massey that the Parliamentarv site was the only suitable one available, and on these grounds only he granted you the use of it, stipulating that the memorial would be suitable for its position. You will now realise that the Parliamentary site is universally condemned, while the site selected at the Basin Reserve has the most enthusiastic approval of the great majority of the citizens, and I feel sure that you will at once accept this, in preference to the site which has been shown to be so very unsuitable for the fine monument which you have selected. ."I shall be in Wellington for some time, and should- be only too delighted to meet you and vour committee in order to remove anv misapprehension which may have influenced you in the decision that you have made. "Believe me, I have been acting wholly in vour own interests, for I have felt that it is because yon have not fully realised the defects of the site you have chosen that von have determined to place the monument there. Waving now had those defects shown von. T trust most sincerelv that von will decide to instruct your architects to make arrangements for the laying of the foundation stone on Anzac Bay, not on the Parliamentary site, but on the site recommended in my report.”