ANZAC DAY PARADES

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27377, 16 June 1954, Page 10

ANZAC DAY PARADES

APPEAL FOR BIGGER ATTENDANCES

R.S.A. URGED TO REMEDY PROBLEM

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 15. The “increaJhgly meagre attendances” at Anzac Day parades were criticised by the Administrator (Sir Harold Barrowclough) when he openea the annual Dominion conference of the Returned Services’ Association today. He said his remarks were particularly addressed to the returned men of the Second World War. Sir Harold Barrowclough urged the R.S.A. to devise some means to ensure that Anzac Day parades were fully attended.

“If Anzac Day is not honoured by us, by whom can we expect it to be honoured?” asked Sir Harold Barrowclough. “It has been my ifripression at many parades that I have attended, that it is the 2nd N.Z.E.F. who is not as fully represented as its numbers seem to justify. I may be wrong, but I think it is a fact. What is the cause?’ Sir Harold Barrowclough said that at one stage it had been suggested that the 2nd N.Z.E.F. members had not received their medals, and that there was an understandable reluctance to parade with the Ist N.Z.E.F. without them. That cause, however, had been removed.

“I feel constrained to beg of you to find the cause to this question,” he said. “Every former serviceman who can stand on his feet should regard it as his duty to fall in with his comrades on Anzac Day.” Might the trouble be in some places a lack of co-operation between the R.S.A, and its smaller brother, the 2nd N.Z.E.F. Association? he asked. If that

were so, he hoped that some conjoint organisation could be set up for Anzac Day. “The R.S.A. is big enough and sure enough of itself to initiate some cooperative effort on the part of these bodies to see that future Anzac Day parades will be up to full strength,” said Sir Harold Barrowclough.