ANZAC DAY REGARDED AS HOLIDAY?

Chronicle (Levin), 7 November 1946, Page 3

ANZAC DAY REGARDED AS HOLIDAY?

DUNEDIN, Nov. fi. After a lively debate at a general meeting of members of the Returned Services Association represented by an I attendance of only 40 it was decided j last night not" to depart from tlie^ traditional form of the Anzae Day observance. Some radical clianges in the comniemoration vvere embodied in several motions that had been carj-ied liy a special eommittee representingvarious returned servicemen's organisations of both the First. and Seeond World Wars. The change proposals were that all parades and. religious services under R.S.A. jurisdietion be confined to the lubrning, and that tlie present legislatioii be altered to permit the afternoon and evening to be used for educational purposes per medium of concert halls, sports, and pictures, etc., of a national character. A motion advocating the abovej clianges was actually carried liy the meeting but lost to the couutry votes, and klr. Iv. J. Gordon, the mover, ! registered a protest againSt. tlie lack j of in'formation given the country members of the proposal. Mr. Gordon said i the present commemoration liad beenj introduced on a wave of hysteria that had been bred soon after the Great War. The majority of persons now regarded this day as a holiday. "I will say without fear that if there were a

race meeting on Anzae Dav there would be 30,000 persons at this event and only 3000 at the Anzae Day commeinoration parade, " he said. People now only attend the parade because they have nowhere else to go. "