The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1927. ANZAC—AND SOME REFLECTIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 27, 23 April 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1927. ANZAC—AND SOME REFLECTIONS

TIME has taken the sharp edge off the Gallipoli adventure and garlanded it with the roses of remembrance. Already, it has become “a portion and parcel of the dreadful past.” But it might well be said that there are spearpoints still bared on Anzac Day. There are poignant memories, grievous scars, vexatious consequences of service and sacrifice, and the hardship that so easily becomes obscure and unappealing in the twilight of a glorious day. So it may be imagined that the emotional influences of a commemorative day will be most real and most keenly felt by the former soldier who has hart his .pension for war disability reviewed adversely or finds it difficult to obtain a billet in a country that once was so grateful to him for facing a bullet.

Reflection on death sometimes seems to be needed in order to call attention to the true meaning of life. Hence the national value of Anzac Day and a quiet commemoration of a young nation’s character and courage in a thing that was evil for a good cause. It is difficult to realise that twelve years have passed since the fateful Sunday by the Aegean Sea when the immature soldiers of New Zealand, together with no less valiant comrades from the old lands and the new lands of the Empire, rushed eagerly upon an impregnable fortress and forthwith leapt into the permanent fame of warriors equal to the best in bygone centuries in an ancient cradleland of conflict. Men, who at the dawn of that terrible Sabbath Day withstood the hail of shard and shell and charged headlong on Turkish cannon, now see their children as sturdy Scouts or graceful Guides learning the wise discipline of training in peace so that the qualities of character which gave us Anzac Day may become a great moral force against war. Since life itself is a continual conflict, with more temptation to wage warfare than encouragement for the promotion of peace, it is right that there should be kept running in British hearts everywhere a tide of true patriotism. It may seem bitter mockery to refer at all to the possible end of war and the establishment of even a x-easonable brotherhood of nations. As cynics look around a disordered world they will feel like asserting that statesmen merely succeeded in making “a peace to end peace.” But the purpose of Anzac Day is not to measure the materialism of war, but to reflect on its moral and spiritual lessons. It is springtime once more on Gallipoli with a beautiful peace over the companionable graves of our heroic dead. Let us all, when we hear a shrill bugle on Anzac Day, remember their loyalty, their courage, their sacrifice, their death, and their triumph.

NEW ZEALAND FIRST

THE manufacturers of New Zealand are now thoroughly awakened from the lethargy that, in the past, allowed the secondary industries of the Dominion to languish. They are now as alert as any of the industrial directors of other countries to seize every opportunity to extend their trade, and they fully recognise the necessity of appealing to the patriotism and the commonsense of the New Zealand people, in urging them to buy New Zealand-made goods. The campaign now launched by local manufacturers should Itave the support of all who wish to see their country prosper. It is not enough that New Zealand should be a huge farm; it can be farm and factory in one, not only producing all its own food and exporting a huge surplus, but also manufacturing most of its essential goods. There are articles now made in New Zealand equal to the best that can be produced overseas; articles which it was declared, not longer than a decade ago, could-not be manufactured in this country. This “can’t-be-done” bogy has been slain. Millions of pounds go out of the country for motor-cars, for instance. Even motor-cars could be manufactured in New Zealand, if opportunity and encouragement were provided. Does New Zealand not make locomotives equal to the best? New Zealand brains, New* Zealand capital, and New Zealand labour, working in combination at the behest of a New Zealand public willing to support local industry, will produce almost everything required for sustenance, convenience and comfort. Let us give preference to the products of our own lands and the country will enter an era of prosperity to which limits may not easily be set.