The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1911. NEGLECTED GRAVES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 78, 22 September 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1911. NEGLECTED GRAVES.

As a result of newspaper enquiry and peaceful agitation a year or two ago, the fact was brought to the mind 3 of New Zealanders that many of its soldiers slept in unmarked graves, and that where these graves were in defined burial grounds many were utterly neglected. Among other things, it was discovered that during the South African war the Xcw Zealand people had cheerfully subscribed a large sum of money for marking graves of New Zealand soldiers buried in South Africa. The sum lying idle in a New Zealand bank totalled upwards of £7OO, and £IOO of this was sent to the Graves Guild, representing one branch of the activities of the Guild of Loyal Women of South Africa. When the newspaper responsible for the knowledge of this idle sum had ventilated the matter, it was pointed out that every known grave of every soldier buried in South Africa was reverently marked, the loyal women undertaking to tend them. It was the army's I business in the course of its routine work to do the work that the good people of New Zealand were so willing to do. The sum, therefore, not being necessary for the work for which it was raised, the New Zealand Graves Guild obtained authority to use a portion of it for the upkeep of the graves of men with South African service who had died in New Zealand, A uniform, permanent and beautiful design was chosen by the Graves Guild, and a paragraph was circulated throughout the New Zealand press inviting local authorities to forward particulars of the locality of unmarked soldiers' graves. In the House of Representatives on AVednesday last, in reply to a question, the Ministers stated that a sum of £2OO had been set aside for the upkeep of soldiers' graves, but that local bodies had applied for only £lO of it. It is not clear whether this sum of £2OO is a Government fund or £'2oo of the fund subscribed ten years ago by the people of New Zealand. Many known graves of soldiers killed in the Maori wars are either quite unmarked or in a totally neglected condition. There is no excuse, except that local liodies are apathetic and that there is no New Zealand sentiment in the matter for this neglect, for sufficient funds exist to keep every one of these known graves in decent order. Whatever individual opinions may be as to the morality or otherwise of defending a country or allowing it to be defended by someone else, it is an incontrovertible fact that New Zealand owes its existence as a British country to British professional soldiers and to the very best kind of citizen soldiers. It is not creditable that there should be apathy in the matter of marking and keeping decent the graves of the men who fell, particularly when means exist for adequate and reverent attention to every one of these spots that should be hallowed in the minds of the people and in the history of the land.