A FINAL APPEAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 783, 2 October 1929, Page 8

A FINAL APPEAL

FULL realisation of the War Memorial Museum plan is aimed at in the appeal of the Citizens’ Committee for funds which will enable the general scheme to be completed by the provision of a marble cenotaph and other features subordinate but none the less essential to the main design. In spite of tlieir subsidiary character, the features proposed are costly, and a sum of £.11,500 is needed. With this subscribed the committee will be able to erect a cenotaph, provide a system of floodlighting to throw the building into brilliant relief at night, and complete the preparation of the Museum grounds. By this arrangement the Museum building will, from the Domain itself, he seen as a magnificent pile crowning a long- sweep of lawn and garden. Immediately in front of it the Cenotaph will stand in a Court of Honour, a fitting centre for future commemoration ceremonies of the most solemn character.

The committee is showing- great wisdom in going ahead at once toward the fulfilment of its objective. Though there have lately been many calls on the generosity of the public, it will he realised that to delay the final appeal would be to court a form of satisfied apathy born of the complacent belief that the Museum as it stands is a handsome enough reflex of the City’s regard for its war-heroes. Up to a point this may be so; but without a cenotaph. the tangible shrine of heroism, the tribute would still he incomplete; while to leave the arrangement of the grounds to the fluctuating resources of the municipal purse would he to invite piecemeal methods which might not he finished with for years. Leading citizens and business firms have made a notably generous response to the committee’s privately-circulated appeal for donations. Forty-nine .donors have subscribed the handsome sum of £6.660. which leaves the rest of the City less than £5,000 to find. In the circumstances the committee will anticipate no serious difficulty in raising the total sum. To the community as a whole such a result must be extremely satisfactory. Work on the improvement of the grounds and on the installation of the Court of Honour is already in hand. The desirability of a permanent, cenotaph, instead of the crude structure assembled in Queen Street for Anzr - Day, and taken to pieces the following day for storage until it is again required, should long since have impressed itself on the public. When, instead, there is a graceful stone monument standing before the fine building which Auckland and district have built at no little sacrifice as a tribute to the heroism of their soldier citizens, the City and its environs will be able to consider a noble purpose thoroughly accomplished.