GRAVES IN FRANCE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3519, 5 July 1920, Page 7

GRAVES IN FRANCE.

CARE OF THE CEMETRIES. LONDON, April 24. There has been, I believe, some dissatisfaction expressed in New Zealand with Retard to the state of the graves of otfr soldiers in France, and for that reason the information which I have just had from the High Commissioner in this respect will be welcomed. Sir Thomas Mackenzie went to Paris on April 6th and attended there a meeting of the Anglo-French mixed committee and the Imperial War Graves Commission, of which latter body he •i<'a. commissioner. The chief subject for their consideration was of suggestions for the transfer of bodies of British and French soldiers buried in Germany and France. Following that he made a three days’ tour of the cemeteries in France.

The High Commissioner says that ( misunderstandings have probably j arisen from the fact that persons , merely visiting France do not under- ! stand that there are really three cate- j gories of so-called cemeteries, and j only one of these three will, in real- | ity, remain as fixed cemeteries. There are, for example, clusters of graves of any number up to about a hundred, and these, it is arranged, are to be

transferred to the nearest established cemetery. Again there are certain cemeteries which have been subject to sii sll tire, and these are in an untidy condition. Both these classes of cemeteries are simply awaiting transfer; nee, and the work being done is most naturally being caf-ried o n with most vigor in the established" cemeteries. The High Commissioner reports that already there are eight hundred i