The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1920. WAR COMMEMORATION

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 179, 24 April 1920, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1920. WAR COMMEMORATION

.: —fr-, Since Anzac Day falls this year on.a Sunday, the question of making it a general public holiday does not arise. It is to be hoped, however, that before another year goes round tho day niay be dedicated formally, ag a national anniversary to be observed in future years. Five years .of unexampled human experience have passed, since the Battle of the Landing was fought and our untried soldiers. first gave proof of their martial quality, but who can say that the associations which give Anzae Day historic meaning in the oyes j of New Zeilanders and Australians are in any degree lost or obscured against the background of thesG years 1 So far at least as these Dominions are concerned this day of a great beginning has-such an appeal as no other day can claim. Throughout the war our troops won glory on many battlefields, but the promise of all that followed was made manifest when they gained their first foothold on Gallipoli. For that reason and others Anzac Day is of. all days that which New Zealanders through the ages may most appropriately dedicate in proud and grateful memory of what the soldiers of the Dominion endured and achieved in the Great War. In this_ country Anzae Day would retain its pre-eminent claims even if. it were proposed to .commemorate the war or its termination simultaneously throughout the Empire on some other day. For New Zealand and its people no other day carries in this connection such associations arid traditions as April 25. Whatever is done elsewhere, Anzae Day ought to be perpetuated in this country, not only because it witnessed the .opening of the first great chapter, in the- history of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forco, but for the reason that already, more than any other day of war memory, it has acquired a, meaning that strikes. homo to the heart of the people of the Dominion. •Closely related to the' question of the worthy observance of, Anzac Day is that of setting up such war memorials as, in tbj words of the National War Memorials Committee, will "embody the objects and sacrifices of the ivar and the virtues displayed therein in such a way that they, will be an education and an inspiration, not only to the present but to future generations." The most- important issues here raised concern the character and site of the national war memorial which is to be erected in Wellington. Although Borne counter-proposals have been put forward, the committee clearly would _ be wrong if it deviated in the slightest degree from its indicated intention of making the memorial a monument purely. Some efforts are being made to popularise the idea of erecting an art gallery instead of a monument as a national memorial, but this is manifestly a caso of attempting to mergo two things which in tneir nature aro separate and distinct, and cannot be morged without doing violence to good sense and feeling. There is .everything to.be said for establishing a national art gallery when resources are fairly available for that purpose. But the -very fact that an art gallery is needed for utilitarian ends—though these admittedly are on .a high plane—condemns the idea of making such an institution serve at the same time as a national war memorial. The most essential attribute of a worthy Avar memorial is that' it shall lie a single-hearted re-cord-and expression of the national gratitude toMhose who fought and fell, and of reverence for the virtues it commemorates. Nothing, howovcr admirable in itself, should be allowed to intrude on this' conception ,_ or can be allowed to intrude, if the memorial is to be worthy of the country and its soldiers. The whole question at issue ia distorted in the assertion, made

in furtherance of the art gallery project, that the" educative value of an art gallery would transcend that of a memorial monument. An art gallery has its particular purpose to sorve; it is an educative influence within defined limits. The purpose of a national war monument is as broad as the life of the people by Whom it is erected. Its educative value bears upon the foundations of their national life, and the art of a nation which has become insensible to the inspiration of such a record of past glory and achievement /will at best be decadent. Honest enthusiasm no doubt is nfc the bottom of the attempt to give utilitarian form to the national war memorial, but it is not the less evident that in the minds of those whom it sways this enthusiasm has obscured and distorted the real object of such a memorial. -So far as site and design ■of the national memorial are concerned, there is still scope for discussion, and this ought soon to take a practical turn, sincc a sub-com-mittee is to report _ shortly on the question of sites available. * Full approval will no doubt be given to the suggestion pf tho Mayor that the city would, bp better advised to cooperate with .the Government in sotting up this national memorial than in supplementing, the latter with a local memorial, and that the city, if called upon, might contribute some part of the outlay on tho national scheme. Whatever may be done in regard to such details,' the ideal that should 1;» puvsued is undoubtedly the erection on a commanding site of a monument of noble proportions and design.