The Evening Star SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1946. VICTORY CELEBRATIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 25813, 8 June 1946, Page 6

The Evening Star SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1946. VICTORY CELEBRATIONS.

To-day is Britain's Victory Day, but the reports that have beeu published suggest that it would be more appropriate to call it London's Victory Day. As the hub of the Empire it is fitting that London should be the centre of things on an occasion like this, and it can be expected that the great city will extract every ounce of pageantry possible from the celebrations. With so many factors we.ghing against a victory function—the principal of which, of course, is the tact that real peace is still exceedingly elusive—it is small wonder if the people of London and Britain as a wnole nave been somewnat uuutnetic to tne entire arrangements. On the tve ot Victory Day, nowever, uie peopie are reported to oe more 'caugat up oy tne spirit ot tne hour} duo they would be apathetic indeed if the Dunting ana decorations and the extensive preparations failed to stir them. The general public reaction till now is very easy to understand, since the wbrid appears to be ining in an uneasy truce in wnicu the atmospnere is dominated by distrust, suspicion, and aspersion. The Britisn Cabinet bus decided that the victory celebrations are warranted, and that the peopie of London, who suttered.so much, nave earned the right to celebrate. The Cabinet views the plans made as a form of compensation for all that suffering, but English papers of comparatively recent dates do not echo Cabinet's optimiss. They argue that peace treaties have not been signed; that there is no real peace yet; that the money spent could have been better diverted to more pressing needs; that victory has been celebrated, with all joyful spontaneity, and that no planned demonstrations, on however grand a scale, can possibly recapture, thirteen months later, any of that rapture which was heartfelt when the actual fighting ceased. A writer in the ' Spectator ' of April 12 strikes an unusual note: " One of the unhappy consequences of the unpopular and undesired Victory Parade—for I find universal evidence of its unpopularity—is the exclusion of the public from large areas of the London parks just in the spring weeks when the parks are at their best. Kensington Gardens is already desecrated by miles of barbed wire—a plain outrage on the rights of the peopie of London —and there is a threat that Regent's Park is to be treated likewise. For London, at any rate, this is a heavy price to_ pay for the officially-promoted jubilation that the Government is imposing on it;" The oelebration is being held on Whit Saturday. Whitsuntide being the Church festival to mark the occasion on which the Holy Ghost brought ''wit''^—understanding—"and wisdom" to the disciples. It seems questionable whether wit and wisdom have dosoended on the disciples of the people when Victory Day is held at this juncture. The Egyptians are to note the day by calling a general strike and holding a day of mourning, which is going to the other extreme: