ANZAC DAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 May 1940, Page 2

ANZAC DAY

QUESTION OF OBSERVANCE. ATTITUDE OF RETURNED SOLDIERS. (By Telegraph—Press Association., WELLINGTON, This Day. “That no change be made in the observance of Anzac Day” was a remit adopted yesterday by the annual conference of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association. An amendment to add the words, “and that branches of the association hold no functions which are not in accordance with the spirit of Anzac Day,” moved by a delegate who said the attitude of the association had been “damned hypocrisy,” was defeated.

While the proposal to adopt the remit was before the conference, Mr G. A. Hayden (Dominion executive committee) said the attitude of the association had been utterly illogical.

“We ask the public of New Zealand to observe it as a Sunday, yet we ourselves deliberately break it,” he said. “On Anzac Day in Wellington this year we had the dawn service, services in the schools and a big service ourselves. At night I went to a concert which I enjoyed very, very much, but it was a vaudeville show. What right have we to hold a vaudeville show? In other places we have smoke concerts. If we are going to pass this remit year after year it is up to us to observe it ourselves. I am very much against the present obser-

vance, but if we are going to pass this remit we should be loyal to it.” The president, Mr Perry, M.L.C., supported the remarks of Mr Hayden. He had felt for a long time past, he said, that New Zealand’s observance of Anzac Day did not fit the occasion.