ANZAC DAY

Southland Times, Issue 21096, 30 May 1930, Page 3

ANZAC DAY

EFFECT ON BUSINESS.

SOME LOCAL OPINIONS.

The message from Dunedin which stated that the executive of the Dunedin Manufacturers’ Association had considered that the observance of Anzac Day on a special day interfered with business, was the subject of considerable discussion among returned soldiers in the city, yesterday. A number of returned soldiers were interviewed and the general opinion was that Anzac Day will never be discarded while there is a returned soldier left to observe it. The suggestion that the observance of the day caused serious interference with business was regarded by several as a particularly mercenary view to take, and one prominent local returned manj who is also a business man, said: “Where would the business of the country be if the men whom we remember on Anzac Day had not helped to win the war.”

"I see no reason why Anzac Day should not be kept as it is,” said his Worship the Mayor, Mr J. D. Campbell. “It is the only real day of commemoration New. Zealanders have. It is New Zealand’s day and we should keep it.”

The expression of opinion of one soldier was brief, but to the point. “If the war had gone the other way we might have had another day to celebrate,” he said.

The president of the Returned Soldiers’ Association, Mr J. W. Puckey, said that everyone liked to sit down occasionally and think of happy association with parents, brothers and sisters and friends, and after what had been sacrificed in the war, everyone who wished to remember relations and friends should be given at least one day in the year to do so. “The young men who went to the war,” he continued, “gave all they had for their country; surely their country can give one day to them.” He added that, the matter would be considered by the executive meeting of the Invercargill U.S.A, on Tuesday evening and he felt certain that the returned soldiers throughout New Zealand would emphatically protest a-ainst any alteration in, or curtailment of, their day of memory. Another returned soldier said that the public should disabuse their minds of the idea that Anzac Dav was merely a holiday. Anzac Day was a dav of remembrance and every soldier who joined in the parades met old comrades and was reminded of other comrades who were gone, and was a better man and a better citizen for doing so. Returned soldiers had learned to know the true worth of their comrades and it was well that they should have a definite occasion to remember and appreciate it.

prisoners after they have been arrested of any-one in their custody.

The present state of affairs in the New Zealand police is horrifying and the regulations should be altered. Case after case could be illustrated of the dastardly means applied to them to gain a conviction. I will mention one case in which a youth was about to be charged with a crime. The Police did not have sufficient evidence to make an arrest, so they waylaid the youth coming home from work and mentioned what they wanted to see him about and told him he had better come over to the Police Station and talk the matter over. As soon as he got into the Detectives Office they along with the Chief Detective laid out a bait, for the youth. “You need not be frightened in any way. You fellows think we want to see you get into trouble. That is not so; it is the other way about, we want to see you get off, now just give us a little statement of this affair.’’ The youth thought they were not bad chaps after all (as he has related since) and agreed to give them a statement with-which the detectives were of great assistance to him by putting words into his mouth. After about an hour and a half of questioning, they read the statement to him and at the conclusion, said: “Just sign it.” No sooner had the statement been signed than the next order was “Search him, take off his braces” (in case he should hang himself). Then bang into the lock up he went.

Now this state of affairs is not only dastardly but cowardly. A warning should be issued by any Police Officer against a person accused or likely to be accused as follows: “You are not obliged to say anything unless you desire to do so, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and maybe used as evidence against you.” I must also draw readers attention to the fact that an accused person when in the witness box of the Magistrate’s or the Supreme Court, need not answer questions that might incriminate him.

I think every reasonable person will agree that it is high time our Legislature took up this matter and fell in with the findings of the Royal Commission recently appointed in the Old Country.—l am, etc., “FAIR PLAY.”