ANZAC DAY OBSERVANCE.

Evening Star, Issue 21968, 2 March 1935, Page 20

ANZAC DAY OBSERVANCE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —The only regret that one must have on reading the Rev, Mr M'Dowail’s letter on the above subject is that he saw fit to draw comparisons between the observance of Anzac Day and Good Friday. From all other aspects his letter is a timely one. That Anzac Day observance is not and never lias been carried into effect in the spirit or intent of the Act must be glaringly apparent to all. The legislation placed on the statutes declaring this day a statutory holiday—a day of remembrance of those who lost their lives in the Great War—can only be viewed as war hysteria. The gathering of a large concourse of people in the streets to view the parade of ex-soldiers and the ceremony attached to the laying of wreaths is surely not evidence of people sensible to their obligations to those who died and were maimed for them, but merely evidence of the effectiveness of the Act in compelling men to cease work for the day, lose their much needed pay, and barred from all places of entertainment, seek the footpaths of the city or the byways of pleasure resorts, etc. The civilian population of this country never had an opportunity to realise the horrors of war, with the result that we have not the voice of the people clamant for peace, which the war dead sacrificed their lives for. The addresses on Anzac Day invariably do not contain a dominant note for peace or the_ renunciation of war, this being subordinated to the organisation of parades and services available only to a few. whilst the masses roam at large unneeding and unheedful of past sacrifices and the insecurity of their country’s future If we want to honour the dead and carry into effect the ideal they died for, let us change Anzac Day for Pence Sunday, when the churches and soldiers’ institutions could by their knowledge of the futility of war and the suffering it entails, organise and instruct the oncoming generations, in the ideals of peace. If we must retain the unfortunate legislation providing for this day let us remove its passages of gloom, throw open the picture theatres and concert nails, and by educational pictures and lectures let those who are ignorant of war know something of its horrors, and let those who have been thoughtless realise what they owe to those who died and who are crippled, who do not parade on Anzac Day, but who hide their physical deformities from the public gaze in mental institutions, sanitoria, and war veterans’ homes, certainly cared for in a measure by the authorities concerned, but wholly forgotten by the war_ multitude who use Anzac Day as a holiday.— I am. etc., Mark VH. "March 2.