Conservative MP Alonzo Hyndman quipped: "if those soldiers were to come back to-day and look at the memorial... and realize that $1,300,000 was being spent on it, while [their] sons and daughters... are walking the streets of Ottawa hungry, barefoot and without jobs... No wonder the sculptor has depicted the soldiers going through the arch with their heads hanging down, as though perplexed at what is going on."[54] Still, the figures of peace and freedom were placed atop the granite arch on the same day the Munich Agreement was signed in Germany.[55] Mackenzie King was optimistic: "Canada will remember throughout her history, that these two symbolical figures found their place at the top of the National Memorial on September the 30th, the day of the signing of the 4-power agreement which averted another Great War."[56]