SILENT TRIBUTE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 660, 11 May 1929, Page 16

SILENT TRIBUTE

MOURNERS AT TOMB OF LATE MR. MASSEY PROCESSION TO VAULT Press Association WELLINGTON, Friday. A silent tribute to the memory o i | the late Hon. W. F. Massey was paid by a large number o£ members o£ the Reform League and friends and supporters of the departed Prime Minister, who visited his tomb at Point Halswell this morning on the fourth anniversary of his death. The gathering was the largest since the State funeral. There were no speeches, but a solemn procession placed wreaths of remembrance over the vault where the casket will lie when the memorial, now in the process of construction, is completed, and then descended to view the casket below. Over 100 people made the journey by motor to the exposed headland, and many of them had come from distant parts of the Dominion to pay their respects. Among those present was Mr. Massey’s son, Mr. J. N. Massey, who was returned at the last General Flection as M.P. for Franklin, his father's old constituency. Other members of the Reform Party present were the Leader, the Right Hon. J. G. Coates, and Sir Francis Bell. Among the floral emblems were wreaths from former Ministerial. colleagues and the Wellington Returned Soldiers' Association. It will be some months before the memorial is completed. A large amount of excavation was necessary in preparing the site for the foundations, and further delay occurred in the shipping of marble from the quarry near Nelson. Good progress has been made with the sanctuary at the northern end of the memorial. The base of this section, resting over the gun pit in which the casket will later have its permanent resting place, is finished, and the position of the flanking pylons and the columns of the enclosing screen of white marble is clearly marked. In the centre of the sanctuary is a low concrete dome, which will later receive a circular cover of white marble. It was here that the wreaths were laid today. The paved avenue leading to the sanctuary from the south is only in the foundation stage, but the main construction lias been finished at the extreme southern end, where steps lead upward to the sanctuary and downward into the vault. The New Zealand marble is almost pure white in colour, with a light figured effect, and takes a highly-polished finish which should stand the weather well.