PEACE CELEBRATIONS.

Auckland Star, Issue 123, 24 May 1919, Page 5

PEACE CELEBRATIONS.

AUCKLAND FK.OGRAMME. MR. BICKFORD TO ORGANISE. Quite a mass of correspondence, chiefly 'onrerninj* minor details of the monster i iroeession and other items incident to j ;he proposed three days of festivity, svere considered at yesterday's meeting )f tlie Peace Celebration Committee, over ,vhich Mr. J. It. Gunson presided. Adequate notice was necessary, said the chairman, if the relehrations were to be thoroughly organised, but at present the sura total of the information the committee- had to work upon was i that the festival would be held on the j second Sunday, Monday and Tuesday ' after the Peace was sisned. There was I a pcntiment;il eonanderation that could not be overlooked, and this was that the dominions should celebrate simultaneously with <lreat Britain. The committee is to ask the Government to affirm this principle that the celebrations should be simultaneous over the whol" Kmpire. Mr. C. F. B : ckford. who has achieved so frreat a measure of success as honorary orcaniser of the Red Cross war activities, waited upon the committee to offer himself as honorary organiser of the carnival, and his services were thnnkfullv accepted, the chairman instructing , the oecretarv (the Town Clerk) to ffive Mr. Biekford details of all that had already been done. MORE ARRANGEMENTS. Concerning the Sunday of the festival, the decision was made that the various local bodies should be free to make any local arrangements they misrht wish, althoufrh a monster Sabbath service in the city would be held in the Town Hall. Tuesday will be the Childrens' Day, and the Railway Department was willin?, the Mayor said, to carry schoolboys and schoolgirls in from the suburbs and outlyine districts without fee. The chairman also snoke of the triumphal arch, which would bear the words " Peace " on nne side, and " Victory " on the other. The question of illuminations was also brnusrht up. the mnjoritv of the business houses. <rreat and small, ■rcadv to lisrbt their places. The AuckInnd Yacht and Motor Boat Association intimated that the season was too late to permit of a biu water display, hut hinted that it would like to make this display ion the opening of the next season, the first summer of peace.