SOLDIERS’ GRAVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 June 1938, Page 8

SOLDIERS’ GRAVES

QUESTION OF PROVIDING HEADSTONES ( “JOB FOR THE GOVERNMENT” “I think it is a degrading thing for returned soldiers to have to take the hat round on Anzac Day to raise funds to erect headstones for their dead comrades,” declared Mr C. R. Holmes at today’s meeting of the Wairarapa Patriotic Association. Mr Holmes urged that representations should be made to the Government to provide headstones for dead returned men. The secretary, Mr A. E. Prentice, said that the question of war grave headstones was a hardy annual at R.S.A. meetings. The headstones were divided into two classes, the first being the official war grave headstones erected and maintained free, of cost where it could be proved without doubt that death was due to war service. The second class was the Great War veteran’s headstone, for cases where death was not due to war disability. Any relatives could have one of those stones erected at a cost of about £7 15s. The two stones were almost identical, practically the only difference being the lettering. “The attitude of the R.S.A. towards war gravestones,” Mr Prentice continued, “is firstly that we have not the money to provide them, and secondly that the first call on our funds is for the living, and not the dead.” There were 84 returned men buried in the Masterton cemetery, 46 of them being in the Soldiers’ Plot. In only 15 cases had death been accepted as being due to war service. It would be a very big job to try and find money to erect headstones for men who did not die from war injuries. There were about 1400 ex-Service men dying in New Zealand every year. Mr Holmes said it was a job for the State and if the representations came from the right quarter, he thought the Government would do the job. He did not think the R.S.A. should be asked to provide the headstones. Mr J. H. Irving said that in a number of places it was a practice to take up a collection on Anzac Day. Much as they would like to see headstones on all soldiers’ graves, he thought it would be far better to appeal to the Government for money to assist the living. The soldiers’ plots were being well cared for. Where there was one big plot, he thought it might be a good plan to erect one big headstone. To ask the Government to erect headstones was rather unreasonable when so many other things were needed. Mr Holmes: “I disagree. Soon they will be asking us to go out on the road to act as recruiting sergeants to get young fellows who may finish up lying in cemeteries like dogs. It is a job for the Government, and if they do not do it there is something wrong.” It was eventually decided to ask the Government to consider the question of providing headstones for soldiers’ graves.