 In Britain, voluntary subscription, rather than funding from local or central government, was considered the only correct way to pay for a war memorial, although it was disputed whether active proactive fundraising was appropriate. Raising the sums required could be quite difficult, and many committees tried various means, including moral blackmail, to exhort larger sums out of the more wealthy members of the community. The amount of money successfully raised varied considerably: the city of Glasgow, with a million inhabitants, raised approximately £ 104,000 for memorials; Leeds, with around half a million inhabitants, only £ 6,000. A typical memorial monument in Britain costed between £ 1,000 and £ 2,000, but some could be cheaper still; larger pieces, such as the Royal Artillery Memorial, could cost as much as £ 25,000. Australian communities raised funds in similar ways to their British equivalents, but the process of fund-raising was much more open, and included directly canvassing for donations. Typical Australian projects cost between £ 100 and £ 1,000, with the larger memorials costing up to £ 5,000; bank-loans were also sometimes used. Memorials along the Western front, being larger, cost rather more than their civic equivalents; the Villers – Bretonneux Australian National Memorial, for example, cost the IWGC and Australian government around £ 40,000.
