OBSERVANCE OF ANZAC DAY

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 98, 26 April 1921, Page 6

OBSERVANCE OF ANZAC DAY

Despite the imperfect and capricious manner in which the Legislature has given effect to its desire to make Anzac Day a public holiday, yesterday's great anniversary appears, to have been observed throughout the Dominion with an earnestness and a solemnity worthy of the occasion. The admirable way in which the Churches had played their part in the celebrations by their special memorial services on Sunday had entirely failed to abate the freshness and the fervour of the undenominational services and the civic demonstrations yesterday. The only objections that have been taken with any show of reason to the special observance of Anzac Day are that the heroes of Gallipoli were not all supplied by Australia and New Zealand, and that thousands of New Zealand's heroes never saw Gallipoli. Neither of theee objections is to be lightly dismissed, and both are felt most strongly by the Anzacs themselves. Speaking on Anzac Day three years ago, Captain Turnbull, who won the D.S.O. at Gallipoli, said that " some Awsacs had lived to curse the name, because they were ashamed to see their deeds extolled throughout the Empire while the incomparably greater services of the 29th Division passed practically unnoticed." Like true soldiers, the men of Anzac feel a generous indignation at the injustice that is done to their mates by the monopoly of glory which the Anzac celebrations seem to claim for one .section. The remedy, however, is not to abolish the celebrations but to see that they are not carried out in a sectional spirit. With a. combination of soldierly modesty and lawyer-like precision the two objections mentioned are met in the principal clause of the Anzac Day Act, which we quoted in part yesterday and is worth quoting in full now :— In commemoration of the part taken by New Zealand troops in the Great War, and in memory of those who gave their lives for the Empire, the twenty-fifth day of April in each year (being the anniversary of the first landing of English, Australian, and New Zealand troops on Gallipoli) shall be known as Anzao Day, and shall be observed throughout New Zealand as a public holiday. ' The two points to be noted here are, first, that, though the occasion is the first landing on Gallipoli, it is the commemoration of the part taken by New Zealand troops in the Great War and of all those who died for the Empire that is desired; and, secondly, that though a New Zealand Act is specially concerned with a New Zealand celebration, no special glory is claimed for New Zealand valour. On the contrary, the anniversary is described as that of "the first landing of English, Australian, and New Zealand troops on Gallipoli"—where the order is such as Captain Turnbull, !D.5.0., might himself have prescribed. As long as we remember that the landing on Gallipoli was not the work of Australian and New Zealand troops alone, and that our own men did equally brilliant work elsewhere, Anzac Day can be celebrated in a way that will raise no invidious distinctions, but will do equal

honour to all our own brave men and to all their gallant comrades too.

There fs fortunately not the slightest ground for fearing that the Anzac Day celebrations will degenerate into any narrow or vainglorious display. That is not the spirit in which the soldiers themselves regard it, nor was it the spirit of yesterday's celebrations. Yesterday, as on Sunday, the spiritual note was predominant, and the Returned Soldiers' Association, who desired to have Anzac Day given the legal status of a Sunday, must be satisfied that their wisli was realised in the spirit, though not in the letter. The landing on Gallipoli was something more than a. mete feat of arms; it was a great spiritual triumph. In war, according to Napoleon, the moral is to the physical as four to one. It was the moral element triumphing over the terrible physical difficulties, and winning through in defiance of all the rules, that made the Anzac exploit immortal. But, for the same reason, there was something even finer than' the landing on Gallipoli, and that was the holding of it. One of the greatest of our military authorities, the Hon. J. W. Fortescue, hae enlarged upon Napoleon's maxim as follows :

We are too much inclined to think of war as a matter of combats, demanding above all things physioal courage. It is really a matter of fasting and thirsting; of toiling and waking; of lacUinpr and enduring; which demands above all things moral courage.

Measured by the test which theee two great authorities supply, the holding of Gallipoli through all those long months of uninterrupted danger and suffering and exhaustion was an even more searching test of the human spirit than the glorious feat that makes so much stronger an appeal to our imaginations.

Both the secular and the spiritual authorities did themselves honour yesterday in the contributions that they made Ito the due observance of the day. The King's assurance that his thoughts were with the people of New ZealaniJ " in the hours consecrated to the immortal memory of those who fell on the first Anzac Day" was distinguished by his usual felicity. Lord Jellicoe referred in glowing terms to the men " whose sacrifice and enduring spirit would act ac an inspiration for future generations." Very appropriately, General Hunter-Weston, formerly commander of the immortal 29bh Division, cabled. from Gallipoli iiself. He was taking part in a commemoration service at Anzac Cove, and | his concluding words admirably summed up the aspirations which were worthily expounded at length from hundreds of pulpits on Sunday, and also at yesterday's service : M»y we who have survived do our best to spread the spirit of cheerful and selfsacrificing devotion to duty and comradeship, which they so gloriously exemplified, and bo "helped to obtain the ideal for which we fought.