MAY DAY VARIETY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 103, 3 May 1937, Page 8

MAY DAY VARIETY

.> • , May Day is an institution in Europe, if it has not yet itached that \ stage elsewhere. Formerly it was' the festival of spring, associated inj Ancient Rome with a procession of| citizens and in old England withi dancing round the maypole, and the | gathering of the white flower of the hawthorn, still known as May. Strangely enough, the day has long assumed a political aspect, and the parties of the Left have chosen it for their own celebrations. This in the past has often led to factional clashes, sometimes with bloodshed, and the approach of May Day even now is regarded with anxiety by the authorities responsible for law and order. This year, fortunately, May Day has come and gone in Europe peacefully almost everywhere. Yet in the order has been an extraordinary variety in the form and intention of the celebration. Thus; the cable informs us today, London had "the largest Labour and Communist procession in its history," extending over four miles. As it synchronised with the strike of bus drivers, we learn without surprise that 1000 bus strikers, "some carrying red flags," took part in the procession. Paris, too, home of more May Day trouble than any other cily in Europe, had its vast Labour demonstration with work at a standstill all over the country. Moscow, since the advent of the Soviet regime, has always "featured" May Day for a display of the armed strength of the new Russia, and so, we are told, the city "staged a gigantic military parade of 50,000 troops and 200 tanks," while "hundreds of modern fighting and bombing planes roared overhead." Berlin, avowed foe of Moscow, counters this with a similar exhibition of military might. Nothing is said of the Italian capital, but the May Day, so popular with the ancient Romans, may have become ■ suspect with Mussolini and the moderns. The last touch of variety, and also of pathos, comes from sorely-harassed Madrid where the insurgents continued their bombardment, but in the intervals loyalist troops "played football in the streets." There is a gaiety amid the grimness that breathes still of the spirit of spring arid hope.