HC Deb 03 April 1873 vol 215 cc529-30
MR. HEYGATE

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether Her Majesty's Government propose to carry out the recommendations contained in the Report of General Adye and Colonel Gordon with reference to the Crimean Cemeteries, and, in particular, whether they propose to erect on Cathcart's Hill "a large obelisk, or general memorial" to the memory of the Officers and Men of the British Army who fell in the Crimean war?

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, on this subject I have made inquiry at the Treasury, and the Correspondence between the Treasury and the War Office is still proceeding. When that Correspondence is concluded of course there will be no objection to its production. The Treasury have consented to pay for covering the less important of the cemeteries in the Crimea with mounds of earth, for moving the monuments of the Redan into the nearest large cemetery, and for repairing the inscriptions. The Treasury, however, felt they would not be justified in sanctioning any outlay for re-building the walls of the larger cemeteries, for erecting a general memorial, or for the maintenance of a garden,—not from any want of sympathy or unwillingness to provide the amount which might be required, but because it would fail to accomplish the objects in view in any satisfactory and lasting manner.