MR. SAVAGE’S GRAVE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 183, 30 April 1940, Page 5

MR. SAVAGE’S GRAVE

Many Visitors To Fort Bastion Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, April 29. Standing in tr.tnquil silhouette above tlie harbour. Fort Bastion, tlie burialplace of the late Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, is visited almost every day by small groups of men and women. Climbing the steep track from the waterfront road to tlie heudhrnd, they leave a few Howers outside tlie entrance to the vault or merely stand quietly for a few minutes in tlie precincts of tlie fort. _ It was only last week that tlie Public Works Department removed the wilted wreaths, which at tlie time of tlie funeral a month ago formed a etnqiet of colour. Now the sombre brown of the hillside is unrelieved, except for tlie sterner grey of tlie gnu emplacements and the colours of a few Howers and ferns laid outside the vault by some of tlie visitors this week. No work has yet. been begun on the preparation of tlie site for the memorial which will eventually be erected. Access to the fort, which is no longer guarded by police, is confined to a grassy track, the road through the Orakei golf links, used by .the funeral procession on March 31, being fenced off near the burial ground. It is a track already worn deep by the shoes of thousands, although its upper levels have received little or no practical construction. Praise For Service To People The president of the executive of the Wellington Employers’ Association, Mr. A. J. Curtis, at a recent meeting of the executive spoke in eulogistic terms of the service Mr. Savage had given the people of New Zealand ami said that no one could help but realize that Mr. Savage bad devoted bis life to the people of New Zealand. The president asked the meeting to stand in silence for a few moments as a mark of respect’to the late Prime Minister, and it was resolved that appropriate reference should be made in the minutes of the association. At the quarterly meeting of the Wellington Master Builders’ Association, the president, Mr. J. W. Knight, asked those present to stand in silence as a mark of respect to tlie late Prime Minister. It was also decided to place on record the association’s sorrow at. the death of Mr. Savage, who. it was stated, had devoted his life to the service of the people.