OUR BEST FRIEND.
Thb Ypres Times.
43
The records of graves in the United Kingdom were ven- imperfectprogress has,
however, been satisfactory and a provisional list of over 6,000 cemeteries or churchyards
has been compiled. The erection of headstones in these cemeteries is a matter in which
all Units and Territorial Associations should take a deep interest.
Memorials to the missing in Belgium are to be erected at Ypres and Tyne Cot.
The one at Ypres (at the Menin Gate), designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, R.A. (which
appeared in Ypres Times of last July), has had the quantities taken out and the prepara
tion of the foundations begun.
There are some special points in General Sir Fabian Ware's excellent address to the
Royal Society of Arts this month that merit special commendation and are as follow
Perpetuity in sepulture had in the past been a very rare thing, assured in any degree
to the great of the earth only. These dead the Imperial War Conference had held, certainty
deserved the honour which had been shown to the former great of the earth. To ensure
this lasting quality had been the special task of the engineer.
Very few people had any real idea of the number and distribution of the war cemeteries.
They stretched across France and Belgium in a chain from the English Channel to the
Vosges, nearly 1,000 in number, exclusive of some 1,500 communal cemeteries and
churchyards which also hold British graves.
Someone writing on these cemeteries shortly after the War had truly said that the
Empire had thrown a girdle of honour round the world.
These cemeteries and memorials had been built in honour of our dead they were
at the same time unique in history to the achievements of the British race and the British
Commonwealth of Nations they were in all parts of the old world, and in that which was
unknown to ancient empires and conquerors and bore a message to future generations as
long as the stone of which they were constructed endured. If we ask ourselves what that
message would be he thought our pride in the memory of those whom we honoured would
be lightened up with an unshaken hope in the idtimate realisation of the faith and ideals in
which they died. (Extracts from The Times report.)
In conclusion I am certain that readers of The Ypres Times will agree with me that
the facts enumerated above show that the work of the Imperial War Graves Commission
has brought comfort to the hearts and homes of thousands of relations.
W. P. PUUTENEY, Lieut.-General.
(To all ex-Service Men of the Ypres League.)
Are we forgetting in these days when men do
What is right in their own eyes,
And strive to change traditions of our race,
Him that was, and is, our noblest friend
Our King, our King.
For him our Dead went forth to die,
For the great love they bore to him.
He was their inspiration in their darkest hour,
And for him they held the Ypres line
Our King, our King.
Seen him we may have not, yet unto these
That held the Ypres line in those black days
He was, and is, the symbol of high chivalry,
Of kingly greatness and of kingly courtliness-
Our King, our King.
CAMPBELL, OF SADDELL.
