EMPIRE DAY

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 202, 23 May 1936, Page 8

EMPIRE DAY

The late Earl Beatty’s Empire Day message, penned before his death, draws attention to an observance that in this country, has been allowed to fall into disuetude. The date (May ,24) was originally the birthday anniversary of the late Queen Victoria, and for some time after her death was observed as Victoria Day. , Later it was changed to Empire Day, and so became an annual rallying point for Imperial sentiment under the auspifts of the Royal Empire Society, founded by the late Earl of Meath. For older folk the date made the day: or, rather, the earlier association of the date. They had grown used to thinking of May 24 as the Queen’s Birthday, and the transference of the anniversary to the Empire which the Queen saw established and over which she reigned for so long, gave them something by which to remember her. Now there are grown men and women who remember no other sovereign’s birthday than June 3 although November 9 intervened —and the Queen’s reign, is history. Yet by ceasing to observe Empire Day we in the Dominions would lose something. It is important that’ opportunity should be taken on stated occasions for calling attention to the position we occupy in the British Empire, to our dependence on the Mother Countries in defence and overseas marketing, and to the bond of kinship that holds together, as members of a great family, the growing nations of the Commonwealth. There need be no holiday—we have too many odd holidays already; but it is surely worth some effort to preserve Empire Day as a day of remembering.