ANZAC DAY AGAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 96, 24 April 1928, Page 6

ANZAC DAY AGAIN.

It is rather a pity that Anzac Day should be set so near Easter; the contrast between Good Friday and Anzac Day is too painful and one cannot help wondering how long it will be ere sports tournaments are gaily arranged fcr April 25. Each year we. 011 Anzac Day, remember our gallant dead in a manner befitting a world's sorrow, but it seems as though we miss the day's greatest message, the message those who never returned would strive to give, the message their "wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths" would utter—"Peace." Is everyone working hard enough for "wars to cease"? Is everyone striving earnestly for peace? Before me in one frame arc the photographs of three gallant cousins who made the supreme sacrifice in the glory of youth, just on the threshold of manhood. Just lately I had the privilege of entertaining another soldier whose left hand was his tribute to the god of war. And these things are so terribly common to us all. Many 11 mother can say, "Why, that is nothing—l lost three sons at the war." Another, "I got news of the death of my eldest and my youngest son by the same cable." There is no limit to the awfulness of the list. Then there are the scars that were not honourable—the mere boys who went and returned, all useful life over for them. There are the broken men, living yet only half alive, longing for death. There are the sad, sad cases, not many, thank God, who, though they could stand up to war's hell, could not facc life as they found it when they returned and so "went out." The "lookers-on" (and they did see most of the game at the front), the war correspondents, have, by their books, done what they could to put before us the full horror of war. If a page of their books could be printed each week 011 the minds of those who forget so easily peace might remain. But would it? When we can look on disabled men so calmly now, could printed eloquence move us much?

—G. EDITH BURTON.