FIRST ARMISTICE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 113, 9 November 1933, Page 12

FIRST ARMISTICE DAY

(By W. BramweU Scott.)

With next Saturday's celebration, the sixteenth Armistice Day will, have passed, but the recognition of the day shows no sign of diminution in any part of the Empire, although, of necessity, its observance in Britain is a much bigger event than those held.in tlie outposts of Empire.

It is devoutly hoped that our Rose Day effort will not be forgotten by the general public when the ladies, who have worked so hard to provide no less than 20,000 of these emblems, take the field with their helpers next Friday an order that money may be raised to help the men, and their families, who'helped the nation in the hour of its extremity. Quite naturally, my; thoughts, liko -those of other "Diggers," run back to the first Armistico Day. I can see the village of Lo Carnoy and the members of my company paraded in the main street so that the major might inform us that an armistice had I>een signed, and then, after all the formalities had been observed, to be told that we were granted a: half-holiday. I spent the rest of the day wandering through Mormal Forest, much of which had been cut down for planking and firing, meditating upon the experiences xsf the past and the hopes for the future.1 Glancing over one of the November numbers of ■ the "Chronicles of the N.Z.E.F.," of which Clutha Mackenzie was the able editor, I read these words, amongst others: '' Peace breathes ocr the world again, but it seems strangely hard of comprehension, and we have that queer feeling of unreality with which many of us after a night of fever and nightmare regard the fresh calm dawn. Can it bo that this dawn of peace after a four and a half years' nightmare is the same as other dawns! No, it is not as we .used to find them. Something has made the new day different, and we experience a queer feeling of insecurity. But this foreboding may pass with the increasing light, and in energetic occupation in the affairs of the new day, fear will vanish; confidence will take its place, and with it a realisation of security will return. The immediate ideals for which we have fought have been gained. We have justified British spirit and British tradition. There, it might have seemed, our work would cease, but it' is not so. We must rebuild the Empire, strengthen her, from the knowledge ■ hard won in these dark years and firmly set about the work of reconstruction. New Zealanders have learned many things in the war—both good and bad—have seen a little of many lands, and have come to realise that New Zealand is the finest little country in the world. It is ours to make or mar. Its pioneers were tho finest of Britons; and, as we have upheld, under the severest strains of war, their fine traditions of courage, initiative, and endurance against trial, so it remains our duty to build well on their excellent foundation. Let the boys finish their five years' service abroad as they began it and carried it through —straightforward, smart, and self-re-specting, cheery and a trifle happy-go-lucky; always there when they aro wanted; and as good, clean, fine specimens of men. It is the duty of each man to arrive back in New Zealand as fit a citizen as lie can possibly make himself. Then, settling down with the same old go and the same old will to the new life, we will inako and keep New Zealand the finest, jolliest little country in the world." As we read those words of 1918 over again in the year of grace 1933, what must we say? Hopes have been disappointed; ideals have be<k lowered; very little has been attained? A good argument may be advanced for each of these contentions, but, even so, a better spirit has been growing up in these later days. The old idea of comradeship is manifesting itself again, and those who have made some little success in the battle of life are,eager to help their comrades who have fallen by the wayside. Because there is such a spirit abroad in the land, a confident appeal is made to everyone—those who went abroad, those who kept the home fires burning, and to those who have grown to maturity sinco the days of tho Great War— to respond to the appeal for -funds as visualised by Rose Day and its association with Armistice Day when the tocsin of war sounded no more.