Major NEWMANasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that relatives are forbidden by War Office regulation to erect a cross or choose dedicatory words to be placed on the headstone of approved pattern that marks the resting place of their fallen; and can he give the reasons that have led the War Office to make this decision?
Captain GUESTI am informed that the majority of opinion, including that of the Armies in the Field, has been in favour of a regimental headstone bearing an incised cross, and the Commissioners, though not committed to this form of memorial, accepted it on the recommendation of their technical advisers after long and careful consideration of the several proposals before them. The Commissioners are still considering how the large numbers of memorials that will be required can be manufactured at all. Some idea of the magnitude of the task can be had from the fact that in France and Belgium alone there are 500,000 graves and 1,000 cemeteries. My hon. and gallant Friend is misinformed when he states that relatives are forbidden to choose dedicatory words; arrangements have been made for relatives to add inscriptions of their own choosing, subject to certain necessary limitations.
Major NEWMANasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware of the distress that has been caused to many parents by some of the proposals contained in the Report to the 773W Imperial War Graves Commission made by Sir Frederic Kenyon; and is he in a position to state that no final decision will be taken on the recommendations until a further effort has been made to ascertain the wishes of the relatives of the fallen?
Captain GUESTMy hon. and gallant Friend is under a misapprehension as to the duty of caring for the graves of those who have fallen in the War. This duty, on the recommendation of the Imperial War Conference, has been entrusted to the Imperial War Graves Commission, a distinct Imperial body incorporated by Royal Charter in 1917. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War is chairman of the Commission, but otherwise it is entirely independent of the War Office. The Commissioners, the majority of whom are unofficial members and of whom some have themselves suffered loss, have undertaken their task in a spirit of reverence and devotion, and are at all times anxious to give the most sympathetic hearing to proposals that reflect the views of the relatives. Their present decisions have been guided by and represent the result of the most exhaustive inquiries. But there is bound to be some disparity of views, and if my hon. and gallant Friend will obtain and submit to the Commissioners other proposals which he believes are more widely representative, he may be assured that they will receive the fullest consideration. I may add that the Commission were unanimous and emphatic in their adoption of the principal of equality of treatment as regards all war graves. The attention of my hon. and gallant Friend is invited to an article in the Press of yesterday morning dealing with the purposes of the Commission and written by one of the Commissioners, Mr. Rudyard Kipling.