SACRED MEMORIES STIRRED.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 84, 26 April 1937, Page 6

SACRED MEMORIES STIRRED.

In our own ixnmediate community, and doubtless wherever they are read, yest^rday's ontspoken words of the Mayor of Hastings stressing the sanctity of Anzac Day will meet with very general approval. The sentiment that prompted our Parliament to set aside the anniversary of the landing on Gallipoli is quite sufficiently indicated in the words of the dedicating Act passed in 1920 — "Iu commemoration of the part taken by the New Zealand troops in the Great War, and in memory of t hose who gave their lives for the Empire, the 25th day of April in each year (being the anniversary of the first landing of English, Australian and New Zealand troops onGallipoli) shall be known as Apzac Day, and shall be observed throughout New Zealand.' ' Eor lack of some more apt term the anniversary is eertainly spoken of as a "holiday," but the then Prime Minister, the Hon. W, E, Massey, made it very cleajr that the intention waa that it shquld be observed as a "holy day." / This intention waa made atili inore elear when the Act went on to impose legislative restrictions which previously had been applicabie only to the obaervanee of Christmas Day and Good Friday, thas bringing it into line wiith those daya of unquestioned sacred aaaociation. That it was added to the list of Statntory Bank Hplidays was merely for the purpose of enabling the banks to cloae their premises on that day, which under the banking law they could not otherwise legally have done. The spirit of sorxowful gratitude that moved members of , the Legislature of that year is thus made fully manifest, and it is in that spirit which all right-thinking and right-feeling people would have the day observed, As to this there can be no question in the minds of those who can still recall the memories of that eventful day and of the many more that fpllowed it during the long-drawn years of the Great War, with all their alternations of tense anxiety and hopes deferred of seeing it come to an end. Then all hearts were in suspense as to the news each day might bring forth, and pride in some fjne achievement announced was sadly dulled by the sorrowfnl list of casualties that followed. Few, indeed, there were who could ppen their daily paper without fear that it would tell them of some beloved relative or some dear friend having made the supreme sacrifice in the def ence of those he had left behind and of the libertjes that meant so much to all. For such as can remember those days there is no possible difficulty in recognisiiig how the young lives thus voluntarily given up in the common cause should be commemorated. It is, however, not so easy for the younger generations that have grewn up to manhood or to a thinking age to realise all that the Great War meant either to those who took part in it Or to those who had merely to watch and wait for its seemingly unattainable conclusion. Nor can they be reproached, for there* has beeu a very sad neglect of doing anything really worthwhile in the way of impressing them with all that was done and suffered for them. For this our educational authprities are undoubtedly very much to blame, for it is in the schools that the plastic mind of youth should be giyen the first indelible impressions that last througb life. With nothing, if they are to become good citizens, i© it more necessary that our children should be deeply impressed than with the grandeur of self-sacrifice in all Rs many phases, and of this no finer example can be given than the laying down of individual life for what is believed to be the good of all. There' is thus a general and growing tendency to make holiday, in the ordinary sense of the term, of Anzaq Day, and it is one that should be checked in some appropriate way. The trend has recently been specially instanced in the fact that even the Industrial Arbitration Court has given some regard tp it by "Mondayising' ' the sacred day when it happens to fall upon a Sunday. It is, indeed, hard to understand how the rgsponsible adults constituting that tribunal should have fallen into any such erroneous cpnceptjon of what the day should be to us all. Even those who benefit in the way of enjoying an extra holiday orof drawing extra pay will scarcely but acknoweldge this, and some steps should. at once be taken to remove from these particular awards what is virtualiy an insult to the memories of the dead who died that our dearly bought liberties should be preserved.