ANZAC DAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 May 1941, Page 4

ANZAC DAY

FUTURE COMMEMORATION DISCUSSED VIEWS OF RETURNED SOLDIERS’ ASSOCIATION. ANNIVERSARY OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. The future observance of Anzac Day as a national commemmoration clay was discussed last night at the annual conference in Wellington of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association. It was stated that the subject had been placed before the Returned Sailors and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, and the conference decided that when the league replied, the text of the reply be sent to all local associations which could discuss the proposal before the next annual conference. Mr W. E. Leadley, Christchurch, said that the subject of a national commemoration day for all who fell in the service of the Empire would have to be seriously considered. The time was arriving to revise the idea of Anzac Day as a commemoration of those who fell in the Great War. By their incorporation in an army corps with the Australians, the New Zealand soldiers today wore entitled to be called Anzacs.

The president, Mr Perry. M.L.C.. said that Anzac Day was a commemoration' of the New Zealanders' part in the Great War and of ■ those who gave their lives for the Empire. There was a tendency to regard Anzac Day as Diggers day. It was really New Zealand’s national day because, by common consent, New Zealand's manhood was acknowledged on the day her troops stood on Gallipoli; she had maintained this manhood ever since.

The sooner they realised that Anzac Day was really New Zealand's day and not Diggers' day. the greater the prospect of its significance not receding or it being dispensed with, said Mr Perry. It was an extraordinary historical coincidence that on Anzac Day, 1941. the last of the New Zealand and Australian troops were evacuating Greece. "It made il their day. our'day. and above all. New Zealand': national day.” he concluded.