EMPIRE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2778, 24 May 1916, Page 5

EMPIRE DAY.

STIRRING MESSAGE FROM KIPLING By Telegraph—Press (Eec. May 23, 9.25 p.m.) London, May 23. Mr. Rudyard Kipliug lias written- an Empiro Day message:— "When Germany challenged us to hoik up with, the lives and ideals by which' wo professed to live, we accepted the challenge, not out of madness, nor for glory or gain, but to make good those professions. Sinco then the Allies and our Empire have fought that they may be . free, and all the earth may be free, from the intolerable domination of German ideals. We did not foresee the size of the task when the war opened, but we do not flinch from it, now. Long months have schooled us .to a lull knowledge, and tempered us, nationally and individually, to meet it. "The nations within the Empire have created, maintained, and reinforced from their best great armies. They are devoted without -question to this issue. They have' emerged one by one as powers clothed with power through discipline and,sacrifice, strong for good by the bitter knowledge of the evil they are meeting, and wise in the unpurchasable wisdom of aotual achievement, knowing as nations what it is we fight for, and realising as men and women the resolve that has been added, to us by what each has endured. We go forward now under the proud banner of our griefs and losses to greater effort and endurance, and, if need be, heavier sacrifice, equal sponsors for the deliverance of mankind."

• OBSERVANCE IN AUSTRALIA. , (Kec. May 23, 9.10 p.m.) Sydney, May 23. Thero will be a modified observance of Empire Day, but no public holiday, or entertainments. In the schools the observance .will be restricted to an .hour lesson on some patriotic subject. Intercessory services will be held in tho churches.