Anniversary Day.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 17018, 15 December 1920, Page 6

Anniversary Day.

J C'liristchurch has decided this j - ear to I pass over her birthday in silence. It is a habit, so it is said, with ladies of "uncertain age,"' to begin doing this at an earlier stage, but usually when they reach their three score years and ten they trouble little as to who knows how old they are. Their j age then becomes indeed in some in--1 stances a matter of pride. So one might havo thought it would have been the case with Christchtirch in regard to her 70th birthday, but Anniversary Day, it is at last discovered, falls inconveniently close to Christmas time and so, for the sake of business, which is certainly a consideration these times, the. city ! traders have agreed to keep open doors for customers on Anniversary Day and to add another day in its place' to'tho Christmas holiday. Although tho celebration of Anniversary Day has,, pf lato years, possessed few features to remind tho present generation of the 'event which gave the day its significance, many people will regret its disappearance from our calendar. It is not good for a community, any more than fpr an. individual, to dwell too much in tho past, but neither is it good if that past holds cause for pride, something that may servo to stimulate or inspire, that it should fall into oblivion. And we of Canterbury have good reason to bo. proud of the event of which to-morrow is the anniversary. Those early settlers to whoso prescience the Christchurch of to-day owes so much escaped many of the trials and adventures which befel tho pioneers of other provinces.. No troubles with warlike natives gave them cause for anxiety or retarded the natural progress of the settlement. Nature was nioro kindly on our wide and treeless plains than in the rugged bush-covered country where homes had literally to bo carved out of the forest wilderness. But nevertheless life in Canterbury in the early days was hard enough, the pioneers of the plains and the ranges had to contend with raging, unbridged rivers, they lived isolated by long distances from each other, and they learned by bitter experience to know what hard times meant. But they were men of stout hearts, men, too, of more than ordinary vision, who planned for tho Canterbury and Christchurch of *£ne future with practical imagination which we are afraid has not come down to their descendants. They made mistakes—what men in their position and circumstances would not have* done soP But they also achieved enduring successes, on some of which we have been content to rest 'to this day. That, after all, is the lesson of Anniversary Day—the necessity laid unon us by 'tho example of the founders of Canterbury to think of tho future of the city and province and to hand on to those who shall follow us the. ,hisb ideals and resolute purpose that marked the pioneers. It needs no holiday, happily/ to remind us of that duty. '