Treatment of Isolated Graves.
AFTER so many years of fighting over densely populated and civilised countries like France and Belgium, it is inevitable that there must be single graves and groups in positions where, when the life of the land goes forward again, they cannot be reached or tended. Some lie in what were once town or village thoroughfares, and will be so again; others by the side of railway stations and goods yards, houses or factories, in arable or pasture fields, parks, gardens and the like. The objections to leaving these graves where they are need not be dwelt upon. No precautions save them from being encroached upon or obliterated in the course of time. There is, moreover, a strong sentiment among all ranks that such scattered graves look lonely, and the instinct of the Services demands that those who fell by the wayside should be gathered in to rest with the nearest main body of their companions. That is what the Commission, with all due care and reverence, proposes to do.
Removal of Bodies.
IN view of the enormous number (over half a million) of our dead in France alone, the removal of bodies to England would be impossible, even were there a general desire for it. But the overwhelming majority of relatives are content that their kin should lie—officers and men together—in the countries that they have redeemed. The Allied nations, too, have freely given their land to our dead for ever, and that offer has been accepted by the Governments. To allow exhumation and removal in the few cases where it has been suggested would, it seemed to the Commission, be undesirable, if only on the principle of equality, and, judging from what many gallant fighters have said and written before they in their turn fell, a violation, in all but a few special cases, of the desire of the dead themselves.
Battle Memorials.
MEMORIALS to commemorate the parts borne by particular armies, divisions, or regiments in campaigns and battles, such as, to name only a few, the Canadians at Ypres, the South Africans at Delville Wood, the Australians at Amiens, the British at the breaking of the Hindenburg line, will be advised upon by a fully representative military committee, and it is to be hoped that the best art of the Empire will give its services and advice in the designing of them.