MAGNA CHARTA DAY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5436, 17 June 1929, Page 3

MAGNA CHARTA DAY.

OBSERVANCE IMPORTANT. SOURCE OF WORLD’S LIBERTY. Saturday last was Magna Charta Day wherever the English tongue is spoken. Then-the nations who trace their liberties and their laws back to the historic document join in remembrance of the freedom it has conferred upon all. More and more it has become the Interdependence Day of the English-speaking countries, as men have- come to understand the interracial kindness its recognition indicates. The thought is American-born, a gesture of deference to the acknowledged font of freedom and a tender of goodwill to other English-speaking lands of the earth. Governors of states and mayors of cities, church leaders and public officials, call upon their people to recognise the day. Magna Charta Day is nowhere a legal holiday, but it is a day set aside by many of the English-speaking nations for the annual commemoration of the* source of their common liberties, their common legal system, their common language and culture, and their common obligation to one another and to the world. The supreme power for world peace rests in the co-operation of the Englishspeaking nations. There is a vital need, therefore, to keep this co-opera-tion so strong and intelligent that it will resist those forces which attempt to destroy it. The sign and torch of that need is Magna Charta Day, when once each year on June 15 the peoples of these 1 eight nations—Great Britain, the ' United States of America, Ireland, Canada, Newfoundland, South Africa, ; Australia, and New Zealand—divided by many oceans, unite in spirit to renew and remember the co-operation. That date is the birthday of the Magna Charta, which as former President Coolidge said, is “the background of all that we have.” ’ In the churches and Sunday-schools of the eight nations the third Sunday in June is observed as Magna Charta Sunday. Teachers, swift to sense the world peace value of the kinship of our nations, impress upon their classes the significance of the day and the historic event from which it is born. Magna Charta Day is celebrated as Interdependence Day becouse the . Great Charter, which Elihu Root terms /‘the greatest of all events in the political development of. modern liberty,” is the bedrock of our freedom. It is the outstanding day in our concurrent history. Law and language , link men and nations, and the custom of celebrating Magna Charta Day cements the mutual ties. To-day 200,000,000 people live under the traditions, laws, and culture born of Magna Charta. The need of awaking and uniting these millions (not politically) pressses hard upon us. Unify these English-speaking millions in mind and spirit and there is created such a power for peace as the world has not yet seen. It is being done more and more every year in the celebration of Magna Charta Day. This is the spirit of that Great Charter : That there shall be a government of law and not a government of force. This is the Great Charter materialised : Not a fortification or a gun on the long boundary between the United States and Canada. It is an age-long effort to turn the nations from war to law. When it is accomplished, not alone the Eight Nations, but the nations of the world will celebrate the granting of Magna Charta a s the political event of all history.