MAY DAY.

Evening Star, Issue 18931, 4 May 1925, Page 6

MAY DAY.

May Day seems to have passed quietly in most countries where it was cbscr\ od last week. Time was when it was looked forward to as tho “ maddest, merriest da} in all tho year. For the ancient Romans it was associated with the festival of Flora, tho goddess of flowers, then for centuries it was the day when English country maidens danced round the maypole, electing one of their number Queen of tho May, and the chimney sweeps also held joyous revels which in past years were not unknown in New Zealand, but arc as unknown row ns the exchanging of valentines. It is an ironic commentary on the world’s progress that in those places chiefly cities—where it is now mhst celebrated all tho merriness has gone out of May Day while tho madness remains. Tho new May Day was “made in Germany” —what place else so fitting? At an International Labor Congress held in Berlin in 1893 it was resolved that the day should henceforward bo observed as one for Labor demonstrations and processions and proclamations of the aims of Labor to all tho world. And since an “advanced” section of tho Labor movement in most European countries sets small store upon demonstrations that are not made with the help of bombs, tlie day has become one of alarms and fears when it has not been productive of actual bloodshed. Disorders have been loss than alarms during tho last few years. Tho authorities of those countries where it is most fervently celebrated have got so much into the habit of expecting trouble on Labor Day that their precautions have generally sufficed io prevent tho worst kind of collisions between demonstrative and disapproving factions, and the Communists hatching plots for destruction have preferred to lime their outbreaks tor some other day. Uiero were disturbances in Paris last ; car, but only one bomb was exploded, and that outrage, by which small damage was done, was provoked by a Fascist gathering, the conviction apparently being that, if Fascists desired to demonstrate, they should do so on an anniversary of their own. A snowstorm kept all sections within their homes in Paris this year, after the most elaborate precautions had been taken to deal with possible excesses. Measures taken in New York to guard the homes of eminent men and public officials, as well as all public buildings, showed how much America, in these latest days, lias become part of Europe. Berlin demonstrators contented themselves with violent discharges of oratory, making a civil verbal war between two parties of the Labor movement itself —the Socialists and Communists—who each blamed the others for putting a junker militarist in the Presidential chair. The Socialists, apparently, would not have changed that result if they had combined with the other moderate parties, instead of advancing a candidate of their own, at the first ballot, but there was point in the gibe of ‘ Vorwaerts ’ that Hindenburg is President to-day by the grace of the Communist Thaclmann, who at the last poll split the non-Mona,rchist vote. In New Zealand, with better conditions for Labor than those of any other country in Hie world, we are spared happily these extremes of grievances and resentment. Suggestions have been made to alter the date of our tranquil Labor Day to conform with that which is generally observed in Europe—which might mean, at no distant ume, a transformation of its character—but May 1 has," for the present, little bub alien significance) for us. There was some commemoration of it at the Christchurch Trades Hall last week, when the Rev. J. H. Chappie, a well-known extremist, roado a tilt against tho monarchy as a system, and the new mayor, the Rev. J. K. Archer, declined to follow him in that sentiment. But that was merely tho exception to prove tiie rule. Tho boldest innovator in those times must ho allowed to bo Signor Mussolini, who has abolished May Day, with its dangers of trouble, as a holiday in Italy, substituting for it the supposed day of the foundation of Rome. In so doing ho deals tho Socialists a blow and gives his countrymen a day to remember which, if they can feel themselves to have any real association with it, should be tho greatest of all incentives to their national life.