Anzac Day

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 514, 29 April 1949, Page 5

Anzac Day

HE correspondent who writes to us in this issue suggesting that Anzac Day should be abolished because it is "no longer seriously observed" will have at least the silent support of a considerable body of our readers. It is true that observance becomes more and more difficult as the years pass and that for those who feel nothing on April 25, Anzac Day has become just a "miserable excuse for another holiday." But that is the case with every holiday in our Calendar, beginning with Sunday. It is the case with Good Friday and Easter Monday, with Saints’ Days, and (of course with more excuse) with social-political observances like Labour Day. It would be necessary to expunge all ‘those days from-the Calendar if the justification for keeping them there had to be their earnest observance by a high proportion of the public. The test of holy days is not whether we all get something out of them, or whether most of us do, but whether any appreciable number do. A&f they make better men and women out of a considerable number of us they are not merely justified but necessary. If they open doors that nothing else will open, bring influences to bear on us that we would not otherwise feel at all, the question is not whether we have time*to open the doors, whether we all go in, or all feel what is there, but whether the effect on the others is good. Our correspondent’s general view of ‘course is that "holy days, like other holy things, should not be treated with contempt." Most will agree with that; and if Angac Day ever becomes an occasion for mockery and nothing else, it should cease to be publicly observed. At present, however, that. calamity is. not in sight. . |